Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Savory, preserved Chinese plums, licorice, old leather and touches of dried oranges and bark. Already softened and well developed, with savory berries, mushrooms and fine-grained tannins. Long, savory finish. Tempranillo and graciano.
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Wine Spectator
There's a sanguine overtone to this creamy red, with fresh earth and iron accents to the dried cherry, dried cranberry and pomegranate seed fruit flavors. Fresh and lively, with a plush quality to the tannins. Fragrant notes of dried rosemary and smoked paprika linger on the finish. Tempranillo and Graciano. Drink now through 2034. 1,200 cases made, 800 cases imported.
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.