Winemaker Notes
Pair with grilled meats and vegetables with an aromatic sauce like chimichurri.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The textbook 2019 Crianza was produced with 93% Tempranillo, 5% Garnacha and 2% white Viura and bottled at 13.5% alcohol, reflecting a slightly warmer and more powerful year. It fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel and fiberglass tanks for eight days and matured in used barrels (70% American, the rest French) for 24 months. It has notes of wild berries, herbs and spices, with character and typicity, and a medium-bodied palate with a velvety texture and fine tannins.
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.