Winemaker Notes
Bright violet in color. The intensely perfumed bouquet displays blackberry, violet, dark chocolate, anise and tobacco. It shows ripe yet fresh dark berry and cherry flavors along with a firm mineral backbone. It has a vibrant finish that is focused and lingering with floral and spicy qualities.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
Dark, bright-rimmed ruby. Expressive aromas of ripe red and blue fruits and candied flowers, along with vanilla and pipe tobacco topnotes. Juicy and appealingly sweet, offering black raspberry, cherry-vanilla and mocha flavors and a smoky nuance that emerges as the wine opens up. Finishes sappy, penetrating and long, with smooth, slow-building tannins and a repeating vanilla note. Aged in new French oak barrels for two years.
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.