Bodegas Muriel Crianza 2016
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Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
A bright cherry color. Ripe red fruit aromas combined with fruit from the aging (vanilla, cocoa, coffee). Broad, pleasant, fresh and elegant, with soft tannins.
It matches well with tapas and cold meats. A great choice with pastas, game, roasted lamb, hamburger and BBQ, paella, rice and meat dishes, and not-very cured cheese.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
An appealing nose features popping red-fruit aromas offset by a light touch of oak spice. The nicely constructed palate delivers flavors of raspberry, red currant, plum and mild oak. Overall, this is an excellent example of everyday Rioja from a great vintage. Drink through 2023
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Wine Spectator
This red is balanced and polished. Black cherry and plum flavors mingle with licorice and forest floor notes, finishing with floral and mineral accents. Shows a firm structure and fresh acidity.
Other Vintages
2019-
James
Suckling
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James
Suckling
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Spectator
Bodegas Muriel was founded in 1982, when Julian Murua revived his father's (Jose Murua) winery, which dates back to 1926 in the heart of the Rioja Alavesa (one of the three sub-regions that make up Spain's Rioja appellation). The cellars are in the quaint, historic village of Elciego, which is renowned for being surrounded by some of the best "terrior" in Rioja.
The name "Muriel" comes from the combination of the family name (Murua) and the name of the town itself (Elciego). Today, Julian and his son Javier run the winery with the mission to meld the long-held winemaking traditions of the region with new technologies and techniques in order to make wines that express the "best qualities" of the grapes coming from these fertile Riojan vineyards.
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.