Winemaker Notes
Great match for roast meats, foie, game, aged or even blue cheeses.
Blend: 85%Tempranillo, 10% Graciano, 5% Mazuelo
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The 2010 harvest will go down as one of Rioja's greats, and that means wines like this $25 Gran Reserva can be excellent and affordable. It has a nose of mocha, smoke and earthy berry fruits. The palate is layered and texturally complex, while flavors of root beer, baking spice, dried cherry and plum spread out on a smooth finish that is just right in terms of residual tannins and acid. Drink through 2030.
Editors’ Choice -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The canonical 2010 Gran Reserva is classic, polished and balanced, sleek and subtle, with developed aromas and fully resolved tannins. This is a great introduction to the category from a very good, balanced year and at an unbelievable price for the age and quality. It's a blend of 85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano and 5% Mazuelo.
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.