Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2006 Mirto is 100% Tempranillo sourced from vineyards over 70 years of age. It spent 24 months in French oak before bottling without filtration. A glass-coating opaque purple color, it proffers a brooding bouquet of pain grille, espresso, licorice, lavender, and blackberry. On the palate it has layers of fruit bordering on opulent with outstanding volume and concentration. This dense, lengthy effort has 4-6 years of aging potential and will be at its best from 2014 to 2026.
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.