Winemaker Notes
Intense cherry red layer. On the nose it is interesting for its complexity, highlighting the licorice, the fruits of the forest and the aromas of cloves, roasted coffee, cigar leaf, chocolate, caramel and certain balsamic notes, which naturally come from the stay in the barrel. The palate is marked by a velvety tannin that gives it the elegance of this wine as well as having a very attractive aftertaste. In the glass it will evolve, expanding its aromatic variety.
It can be paired alone or accompanied by red meats, game, fatty fish, and cured cheeses.
Blend: 85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano, 5% Mazuelo
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Polished and structured with firm, very fine tannins. Lots going on here, with layers of black fruit, dried spices, graphite, coconut and cracked pepper. Full-bodied and so intense. Keeps going. Long. The tannins are so fine and so numerous. One of the greatest modern gran reservas. 85% tempranillo, 10% graciano and 5% mazuelo. Try in 2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
Deep red-violet in the glass, this wine has a bouquet of cherry, black currant and juniper. Durable tannins coat the palate, bearing flavors of cassis, dark plums, dark chocolate and violet that lead into the spice-filled finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The classical 2016 Imperial Gran Reserva was produced with a blend of 85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano and 5% Mazuelo from grapes that were picked between October 10 and 25 with good ripeness, delivering a wine with 14.5% alcohol after fermenting in small oak vats followed by malolactic in concrete and two years in barrel and three in bottle. I was quite surprised, because the wine was quite closed and needed energetic swirling and time in the glass to reveal its true colors. It has more stuffing and finesse than the reserva. 2016 was a very good vintage, with freshness and balance to develop nicely in bottle. The tannins are very fine, and the wine is tasty and long. 50,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in July 2019.
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Wine Spectator
This dense, concentrated red maintains a sense of grace and style throughout, with sculpted tannins married to a generous, finely knit range of black currant and plum fruit, showing hints of cedar, Earl Grey tea leaf, smoke and spice that echo on the finish. Tempranillo, Graciano and 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.