Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Oak spice scents of cinnamon and vanilla sweeten this soft, mature 2001. Its warm flavors of roasted fig and caramel last, while the slight harshness of the tannin will meld with braised pork shoulder.
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Wine Spectator
This maturing red offers dried cherry, tobacco, cedar and sanguine flavors that turn spicy on the finish. The tannins are firm but well-integrated. Drink now.
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.