Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Plenty of blackberries and dried fruit with some figs on the nose. Full-bodied and chewy with polished tannins that are creamy-textured and succulent. Beautiful drive and length. Vegan. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
A harmonious, medium-bodied red, with creamy tannins enmeshed with flavors of crushed black cherry, Mediterranean scrub, smoke and white pepper as they ripple on the palate. Minerally, iron-laced finish. 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.