Winemaker Notes
Tabuérniga is a small, vertical and isolated valley, where shorter vegetative cycle varieties offer a different expression and give rise to a sober and austere wine, but full of depth and elegance.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Tabuerniga comes from a dry year with low yields that resulted in good ripeness and healthy grapes. Tabuérniga and Las Beatas were two of the few vineyards not affected by the frost on May 6th. The Graciano ripened at the same time as the Tempranillo and both varieties were harvested together the 14th of October. It fermented in 3,000-liter open-top oak vats with indigenous yeasts and matured in 1,500-liter oak vats for 14 to 16 months. The wine has 14% alcohol and a pH of 3.69. I found the wine to be superb, serious, austere and a little closed, a bit reductive even (which winemaker Pablo Eguzkiza told me could be because of the higher percentage of Graciano in this vineyard), in a style that I love. I've always had a soft spot for this wine, and this vintage is no exception; I found it superb, elegant and subtle, textured and refined with gobsmacking balance and depth. Simply superb.
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Wine Spectator
This is showing real depth and purity with freshness and precision. Subtle, spiced blueberries, black cherries, oyster-shell minerality, dried flowers and wild herbs on the nose, following through to a full-bodied palate that’s full of vertical, dusty tannins. Powerful, tense and long, but never hefty. From organically grown grapes. Drinkable now, but better to give this time and try after 2025.
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.