Winemaker Notes
Montecillo Gran Reserva is a classic Rioja wine, selected from exceptional vintages to craft an elegantly complex and exquisitely proportioned wine. Clean and brilliant, deep ruby red wine, very perfumed with mature fruit aromas. Complex and elegant. Satin textured, showing fine tannins and a seductive leather palate. Sleek and refined liquorice tinged finish.
Bodegas Montecillo wines are crafted to enjoy a long bottle life as they continue bottle aging longer than those from other wineries in the region. Montecillo is also renowned for its female winemaker, oenologist Mercedes Garcia. Her love and passion for wine is evident in the care and quality that goes into making her wines.
Blend: 95% Tempranillo, 5% Graciano
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Assertive dark fruit with ripe plums and mulberries, as well as currants and riper, prune-like notes. The palate delivers earthy flavors in a very rich array of smooth tannins.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The ultra-red 2010 Gran Reserva had all the textbook aromas of a long development in barrel and bottle and the polished texture and resolved tannins the category is famous for, with the depth and clout of a great vintage. Exactly what you expect.
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Wine Enthusiast
Modest but classy raspberry, plum and oak spice aromas get this gran reserva going in the right direction. A full-bodied palate reveals edgy tannins, while this tastes lightly toasted and blackened, with plum and berry fruit at the foundation of a long, steady 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.