Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Mirto is sourced from 70-year vines in Haro, Villaba and San Vicente. It is sorted by hand, fermented in French oak for 28 months with no racking. It has a clean, very pure bouquet with plush dark cherry, cassis and blueberry fruit laced with orange blossom. The oak is neatly encased in the fruit profile. The palate is medium-bodied with saturated tannins, good acidity and balance. There is lovely caressing dark plum and cassis fruit towards the composed finish that might have been over-powering and ostentatious in other hands. This is a well-crafted modern style Rioja. Drink now-2018.
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Wine & Spirits
Selected from vineyards at high-altitudes in Rioja Alta where the vines are more than 70 years old, this ages in new French oak for two years, creating a powerful wine that’s still tight and focused. The contrast of tension and richness is apparent right from the aroma, with fresh blackberry scents leading into flavors that feel concentrated without feeling heavy.
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Wine Spectator
This chewy red delivers dried cherry, licorice, balsamic and smoky flavors over firm tannins. Remains polished and balanced, in an austere style, with good intensity. Drink now through 2018. 12,500 cases made.
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.