Winemaker Notes
Gran Reservas by DOCa regulation must spend a total of five years in the winery (three in barrel and two in bottle) prior to release, and this aging lends a quality of subtle spice and integrated components of tobacco and dried fruit. The wine displays notes of soft, voluptuous dark fruit with a touch of earth and a lifted floral aroma on the nose.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Spicy red-berry aromas are a bit reedy and piquant, which makes sense when you arrive at a fresh, vibrant palate, with peppy acidity. Plum, raspberry and strawberry flavors are accented by wild herb notes, and only on the finish does this show a riper note of prune and some oak.
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Wine Spectator
Aromatic, with sandalwood, tobacco and cedar notes, this polished red delivers cherry, forest floor, vanilla and dried orange flavors. Light tannins and juicy acidity keep this focused. Harmonious. Tempranillo and Graciano. Drink now through 2022.
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.