Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Smooth true Rioja aromas of ripe and dried berry fruits, tobacco, vanilla and sandalwood do the job, while this feels both racy and cushioned. Flavors of lightly baked berry fruits, tobacco and vanilla finish steadily, with a touch of vanilla from latent oak.
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Wine Spectator
Ripe fruit flavors of black cherry and blackberry mingle with dark chocolate, licorice and toast notes in this round, firm red. Sweettart acidity underlies a slightly hard-candy character, but this is lively and expressive.
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.