Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2005 Culmen Reserva, made only in the best vintages, is 90% Tempranillo and 10% Graciano sourced from a single vineyard with vine age ranging from 40-60 years. It was aged for 20 months in new French oak followed by an additional 18 months in bottle. A glass-coating opaque purple color, it proffers a brooding bouquet of sandalwood, Asian spices, lavender, espresso, and assorted black fruits. Ripe and sweetly fruited, it admirably combines power with elegance. Drink this lengthy offering from 2015 to 2030.
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Wine Spectator
Toast and espresso notes frame plum, blackberry and chocolate flavors in this polished red. This has lively acidity and well-integrated tannins. A modern style. Drink now through 2015. 1,500 cases made.
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.