Winemaker Notes
An expressive wine showcasing high-altitude, old vines ranging from 35 to 100 years of age. A broad and complex palate, showcasing the best of all the single vineyards. Full-bodied, with depth and concentration, fine tannins and a firm backbone of acidity. It is powerful and structured yet open; notes of wild bramble, herbs and spice end with a long, intense finish.
Blend: 85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano, 5% Viura
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The red 2020 Phincas is a village wine from Elvillar produced with grapes from their older biodynamic vines. It's mostly Tempranillo with 10% Graciano and 5% Viura fermented with full clusters in concrete and matured in 225- and 500-liter barrels for 30 months and then blended together and put in an oak vat for a further six months. It's ripe at 14.5% alcohol, with notes of dry herbs and esparto grass, with a Mediterranean feeling to it. The palate is full-bodied, with dusty tannins and a dry finish. Better with food.
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Wine Spectator
Chalky in texture and firmed by fine-grained tannins, this fragrant red layers a zesty underpinning of cracked pink peppercorn and crushed stone with blackberry coulis, medicinal herb, cinnamon and floral notes. Well-meshed, with a lingering, aromatic finish. Drink now through 2035. 850 cases made, 92 cases imported.
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.