Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A very linear, tight red with black licorice, graphite, dark berries and blue fruit. Medium to full body. Fine, racy tannins. Goes on for minutes. Classy. From organically grown grapes. Better after 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The single-vineyard 2018 La Estrada comes from a northeast-facing 0.64-hectare plot planted in the 1940s, one of the highest vineyards in the village of Lanciego, at 610 meters above sea level. It fermented in an open-top 3,000-liter oak vat with indigenous yeasts and matured in a combination of foudres and barriques for 14 to 16 months. I was very surprised by the elegance of La Estrada, a vintage of great finesse, perfume and a beautiful, silky texture. It's medium-bodied and has great harmony and balance. This should develop nicely in bottle.
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.