Winemaker Notes
Rozas 1er Cru comes from several plots, totaling 5 ha, of Garnacha located near the town of Rozas de Puerto Real. Similar to its “little” sibling, La Bruja, Rozas 1er Cru is lithe and winsome example of mountain Garnacha but with a deeper minerality and slightly firmer tannin, hence the Burgundian inspired name.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Dried strawberries and cherries with some bark and pine-needle notes. Black tea leaf and lavender, too. Full-bodied with chewy tannins, but they are fine grained and very pretty. Lots of black pepper. Needs time to open. Best after 2022.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Rozas 1er Cru is one of my go-to wines from Comando G, as it delivers outstanding quality for its price. I had already tasted this before, but like the rest of the wines, I wanted to put it in the context of the full 2018 lineup and also against the still-unbottled 2019. The wine has evolved very slowly, keeping the profile—expressive, floral and open, beautifully textured with the granite fingerprint. Beautiful.
Spanish red wine is known for being bold, heady, rustic and age-worthy, Spain is truly a one-of-a-kind wine-producing nation. A great majority of the country is hot, arid and drought-ridden, and since irrigation has only been recently introduced and (controversially) accepted, viticulture has sustained—and flourished—only through a great understanding of Spain’s particular conditions. Large spacing between vines allows each enough resources to survive and as a result, the country has the most acreage under vine compared to any other country, but is usually third in production.
Of the Spanish red wines, the most planted and respected grape variety is Tempranillo, the star of Spain’s Rioja and Ribera del Duero regions. Priorat specializes in bold red blends, Jumilla has gained global recognition for its single varietal Monastrell and Utiel-Requena has garnered recent attention for its reds made of Bobal.