Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Quite fragrant black fruit aromas with concentrated dry tannins to balance them. Plenty of life, too. Better from 2018.
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Wine Spectator
This generous red delivers cherry, berry, vanilla, orange peel and baking spice notes, with light tannins and juicy acidity. Forest floor and tea details give this a traditional character. Drink now through 2023.
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.