Winemaker Notes
Nice and intense ruby red color. On the nose, a complex and elegant wine, with ripened red fruits hints balanced with toasted aromas and underbrush notes with spices. It is tasty and intense on the mouth, with silky tannins filling the palate and leaving ripened fruit flavours and elegant toasted reminiscences.
Blend: 80% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano, 4% Garnacha, 3% Mazuelo, 3% Maturana
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Plums, sweet cherries, coconuts, milk chocolate and licorice on the nose. Creamy, ripe and spicy, with a medium to full body and velvety tannins. Delicious spice and chocolate notes at the end. Drink or hold.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Here the 2019 Selección is more expensive than the Reserva (in some places it's cheaper than the Crianza, which makes it slightly confusing). I see better integration of the oak here than in the 2018 Reserva, and they achieved good balance with the blend of 82% Tempranillo, 11 % Graciano, 4% Maturana Tinta and 3% Garnacha that reached 14.5% alcohol but feels balanced. It fermented by plot and village in 10,000-liter tanks and matured in French oak barrels for 14 months.
-
Vinous
The 2019 Selección blends 80% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano, 4% Garnacha, 3% Mazuelo and 3% Maturana Tinta from Rioja Alavesa. It aged for 16 months in French (75%) and American (25%) oak, 17% new. Dark garnet in color, chocolate and vanilla aromas sing above a core of blackberry fruit. Dry, plush and fairly concentrated on the palate, it lingers with a serious, juicy finale.
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.