Winemaker Notes
"Los Yelsones" represents the magic of a vineyard in the upper region of San Vicente de la Sonsierra where the optimal ripening of the fruit expresses its more complex fruity-floral character and “Los Yelsones” imbue the wine with its fresher and chalky mouthfeel.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The pricey 2019 Los Yelsones is truly impressive, aromatic, nuanced, powerful and elegant, with power and finesse and some oak still to be integrated on the palate. It's pure Tempranillo from a plot planted in 1970 in La Rad in the fourth valley of San Vicente de la Sonsierra where the soils have big blocks of calcium carbonate (yelsones) that name the wine. This matured in 500-liter oak barrels for 18 months, but the oak feels more integrated than the initial 2018 that I tasted in my previous review of Rioja. It's a showy and impressive wine that should develop nicely in bottle. Best After 2023
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James Suckling
Plum and berry with some hazelnut and lavender. Fresh flowers, too. Medium to full body with firm, chewy tannins that are fine-grained. Racy and beautiful. Drink after 2023.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Los Yelsones is 100% Tempranillo all from the La Raz vineyard. This deep purple-hued effort has a pure, pretty, elegant bouquet that includes lots of red and blue fruit (it's more red-fruited) as well as flowers, spicy wood, liquid violet, and charcoal. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it has good purity, a lively, elegant mouthfeel, bright acidity, and a clean finish.
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Wine & Spirits
Yelsones are blocks of calcium carbonate, part of the soil matrix at this parcel in San Vicente de la Sonsierra, the balance a mix of calcareous clay, glacial moraine and quartzite. The vines, planted in 1970, produce a gentle tempranillo, its power enhanced by its harmony, lasting on old-vine umami depths. There’s some stemmy greenness, a youthful character that suggests the wine will age well, probably for decades.
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.