Winemaker Notes
Intense cherry red color. Aromas of oak ageing with hints of spices. Strong attack, good backbone, full-flavored, with well integrated long-lasting tannins. Long and persistent finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Black cherry, licorice, smoke, tobacco and tar notes mingle nicely in this firm, lively red. Maturing now, but shows balance and length. Still fresh, it brings you back for another sip. Drink now through 2016. 30,000 cases made.
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Wine & Spirits
If you like gamey reds, here's a wine that is peppery and tart, its cherry flavors balanced by green tomato-skin acidity. A small amount of mazuelo (5 percent) seems to kick up that acidity and direct the wine toward roasted wild mushrooms.
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.