Winemaker Notes
Macán Clásico is deeply attached to its territory, Rioja San Vicente de la Sonsierra compiling centuries of tradition, knowledge and winegrowing culture from the foothills of Sierra de Cantabria. It expresses freshness, fruitiness and delicacy coming from its terroir which provides depth and complexity. Macán Clásico 2016 offers the purest expression of Rioja’s Tempranillo. It’s a fresh wine, but at the same time serious, with persistence and depth.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The newest project for the Alvaro family, in partnership with Benjamin de Rothschild. This 2015 second wine has an alluring chocolate and cherry nose with impressively integrated spicy oak. The palate has firm tannins in the mid-palate. Very plush, detailed and attractive, long and balanced. Big plum flavor. Very fresh.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The entry level here is the 2015 Macán Clásico, pure Tempranillo from their 92 hectares of vineyards in the villages of Ábalos, Labastida, El Villar and San Vicente de la Sonsierra. It fermented in stainless steel after a cold soak, followed by malolactic partly in barriques and an élevage of 12 to 14 months in new and second use French oak barrels. This is the last vintage that was fermented in the old winery, but it has already finished its élevage in the new winery. They have much better facilities now, and they feel they have more precision from 2016 onward, as they have a great diversity of fermentation vessels; they have introduced 4,000-liter oak vats, and they can also treat the press wine separately. 2015 is a riper and warmer vintage, but they harvested quite early to find balance and avoid over-ripeness. It's clean, modern and balanced, with integrated oak and the classical berry flavors with a spicy twist. The palate is medium to full-bodied, with some grainy tannins and enough elegance to counterbalance the natural power. I would say it's a very successful 2015, a vintage that is overdelivering in many cases.
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Wine Enthusiast
Heavy oak gives this warm-year Tempranillo a nose defined by baked black fruits, vanilla, cinnamon and wood grain. The palate is sappy and huge, a heavyweight with modest finesse. Roasted blackberry and cassis flavors sit atop oaky bedding, while this feels jammy and tannic on a beefy finish. Drink through 2026.
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.