Bodegas Ramon Bilbao Gran Reserva 1998
- W&S
Winemaker Notes
"This shares the rose-garden aromatics of Bilbao's 2001, a dark, earthy complexity joined here to a more delicate, gentle red. Oak age has turned the texture to velvet and contributed a range of spices, from cinnamon to cedar and licorice. Tightly built, this is suited to roast leg of lamb with rosemary, or to several more years of aging." -Wine & Spirits, Sept 2007
Their winery, which has recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, is undoubtedly one of the most emblematic in Rioja.
At Bodegas Ramon Bilbao they produce the highest quality matured wines, thus increasing both the Denominacion de Origin's and our founder's prestige. Their daily work is based on using the best prime materials, which we choose with the greatest care: grapes from the best estates and vineyards and barrels made of the best oak from European and American woods.
Their aim is to obtain the best matured wines so that you can enjoy a wine for drinking, savouring and tasting again.
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.