Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
A traditional and elegant style, combining notes of spice and earth with a ripe, juicy fruit profile. Shows finesse and complexity.
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Wine Spectator
This red offers a plush texture and ripe flavors, yet it remains graceful through the spicy finish. Plum, currant and fig notes are balanced by licorice and graphite elements, with well-integrated tannins and gentle acidity keeping this balanced. Drink now through 2025.
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James Suckling
A firm and silky red with dark berries, blueberries and hints of cedar and walnuts. Medium body. Firm and chewy. Pretty finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Earthy, spicy plum and red berry aromas are solid and in harmony. This reserva shows depth and balance along with ripe berry, cassis, chocolate and brown sugar flavors. On the finish, this is more subtle and smooth than loud.
Hailed as the star red variety in Spain’s most celebrated wine region, Tempranillo from Rioja, or simply labeled, “Rioja,” produces elegant wines with complex notes of red and black fruit, crushed rock, leather, toast and tobacco, whose best examples are fully capable of decades of improvement in the cellar.
Rioja wines are typically a blend of fruit from its three sub-regions: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Oriental, although specific sub-region (zonas), village (municipios) and vineyard (viñedo singular) wines can now be labeled. Rioja Alta and Alavesa, at the highest elevations, are considered to be the source of the brightest, most elegant fruit, while grapes from the warmer and drier, Rioja Oriental, produce wines with deep color, great body and richness.