Winemaker Notes
Pair with stews, spiced dishes, legumes and cured cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Reserva is a blend of 90% Tempranillo and 5% each of Graciano and Mazuelo that is aged in American and French oak for at least 15 months. It has a generous nose of red cherries, over-ripe oranges and Indian ink that is attractive, if not overly complex. The palate is rounded and slightly leathery on the entry. It constitutes a sedate, mellow Reserva that has a classical personality. There is nothing wrong with that and I appreciate the balance and refinement on the off-dry finish.
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.