Winemaker Notes
Intense aromas of mocha and tobacco lead to rich, layered notes of dark blackberry fruits. This deeply concentrated red wine has serious structure gifted from its impeccable terroir.
Blend: 90% Tempranillo and 10% Graciano
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Íñigo Manso de Zúñiga Ugartechea makes this wine from his family’s ancient vines in Torremontalvo, the parcels bordering the Ebro River in Rioja Alta, where there’s enough sand in the clay and limestone soils to have protected the vines from phylloxera. He believes some of the plants are more than 140 years old. He named this wine for his father, the Conde de Hervías, and makes Torre from those same vines in lesser vintages. This is pretty great for a lesser vintage, an elegant Rioja with tension in its velvet cushion of tannins, a cool, clean wine with focus and shape. A spicy note brings to mind roasted tomatoes and grilled eggplant, adding to the wine’s savory richness. Decant it for lamb.
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.