Winemaker Notes
Dark and richly colored, this wine has a nose of combining blackberries and spices with a slight mineral element. In the mouth it full-bodied and densely packed with plum and red berry fruit. It has pronounced tannins that are well-integrated and smooth on the finish. Try our special V.O.4 with roasted or braised meat, stews or dry, aged cheeses.
Blend: 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Tempranillo, 10%Graciano
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This polished red is smooth, with clean fruit flavors of black cherry and plum. There's plenty of depth, with ripe tannins and notes of spice, tobacco and coffee. Distinctive and alluring. Drink now through 2010.
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.