Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2005 Reserva is a blend of 95% Tempranillo and 5% Graciano from 40-year-old vines aged in American and French oak for 18 months. It has an understated, subtle bouquet of dark cherries, loganberry and just a hint of tobacco and balsamic. The definition is wonderful: great clarity and focus here. The palate is medium-bodied with supple, fine tannins and a crisp core of cranberry and raspberry fruit that leads to a subtle leather and tobacco tinged finish. This is very classy. Drink now-2020.
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.