Winemaker Notes
Ruby red with a gold-tinged rim. Deep, vibrant color. A Complex nose. It retains the ripe red-berry fruit aromas of blackberries, blueberries, and block plums extraordinarily well. Gradually it opens up to reveal smoky, toasted wood nuances, with spices and hints of minerals and tobacco. A Smooth mouth-feel, with sweet, polished tannins. A long, elegant, perfumed finish with final hints of coffee with chocolate.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Leathery cigar box aromas framed by dried red and black fruits, classic nose. Everything in the wine is mellowed and soft.
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Wine Enthusiast
Mature berry, cola and coffee aromas announce a gran reserva that just reaches that level of affordable excellence that everyone is looking for. The palate is a bit raw and bumpy, and the spiced plum flavors are familiar and touched up by buttery oak, but overall this delivers enough classic Rioja tobacco, vanilla and red fruit character to warrant spirited consumption
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.