Winemaker Notes
Blend: 96% Tempranillo, 3% Garnacha, 1% Viura
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The entry-level wine, the 2008 Predicador, is made up of 96% Tempranillo with the balance Garnacha and Viura aged for 16 months in second use French oak. Fragrant notes of smoke, spice box, incense, tobacco, and assorted red and black fruits inform the nose of this relatively forward, savory, well-proportioned, lengthy effort. It has enough structure to evolve for 2-3 years and will provide optimum drinking from 2013 to 2020.
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.