Winemaker Notes
Nose: Complex and elegant blend of fruits of the variety and its ageing in quality French oak. Not fully evolved; lively, clean and pleasant.
Mouth: Powerful and meaty. Intense, pleasant taste. Firm, well-structured acidity.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Bodegas Altanza's 2006 Lealtanza Crianza is 100% Tempranillo fermented with native yeasts (as are each of these wines) and aged for 12 months in French and American oak. Dark ruby-colored, it displays an enticing nose of cedar, spice box, tobacco, leather, and blackberry. Smooth-textured and elegant on the palate, it has ample savory fruit, good volume, and enough ripe tannin to evolve for 1-2 years. This lengthy effort will offer prime drinking from 2012 to 2018.
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.