Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
There is no Contador and none of the other top wines were produced in 2013, only this cuvée and Predicador were bottled from that vintage. So the 2013 La Cueva del Contador got the best grapes they could produce in that challenging year. It is pure Tempranillo fermented in oak vats with indigenous yeasts and matured in new French oak barrels for 18 months. It has a clean, perfumed, subtle nose, very floral and sleek, polished and insinuating. It's really aromatic and open, with notes of spices (curry, nutmeg), aromatic herbs and wild berries; it turns more and more balsamic with time in the glass. The palate is silky, with an earthy touch, elegant but with personality, with sophisticated tannins and good acidity. Balanced and elegant. This is a great wine whose only problem is having a big brother called Contador. Wait, there is no Contador in 2013... 11,000 bottles produced.
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.