Winemaker Notes
Cherry red with tile edges. Clean and bright medium high robe. On the nose, ripe fruits, strawberry and hints of licorice are perceived, which open up to give a floral range and sweet spices. Pleasant, tasty mid palate, ripe tannins with a cherry presence. Long and pleasant aftertaste with hints of aging in wood.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Fully ripe aromas of plum and berry fruits are earthy and suggest prune, lactic oak and a hint of paint. This reserva from a marginal vintage is full and round, with honest acidity. Dried flavors of blackberry and raisin are leathery and salty, while spice-cake notes and a hint of oxidation appear on the finish; drink sooner rather than later. Bodegas Riojanas.
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Wine Spectator
This concentrated red shows polish, with cocoa-lined cherry and juicy red plum notes underpinned with balsamic, cola and mineral details. Elements of spice and anise echo on the finish. Drink now through 2029. 25,000 cases made, 1,250 cases imported.
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.