Winemaker Notes
85% Tempranillo, 15% Garnacha, Graciano and Mazuelo.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
If you love the pleasures of traditional Rioja, you may be as charmed by this wine as I am. It's not flashy or insistent. In fact, it's sort of homely in its simplicity, more about delicacy and finesse than complexity. This starts out on tight red berry scents, builds tension with cool acidity, then adds depth with gentle sweetness, so the wine feels both firm and lush. Kudos to CVNE for one of the most compellingly drinkable 2012s you can find.
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Wine Spectator
This sleek red offers cherry, licorice, mineral and smoke flavors that mingle harmoniously over light, firm tannins, driven by lively acidity through the savory finish. Discreet, but shows depth and intensity. Drink now through 2025.
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James Suckling
An intense and ripe nose of black cherries, strawberries and plums with hints of soft spices. Full body, concentrated and juicy tannins and a refreshing, fruity finish. Delicious.
Cvne, is situated in Rioja in the traditional neighborhood of the station, where the oldest wineries of Rioja Alta established themselves, for the main reason of transporting their goods to the port of Bilbao.
In 1879, two brothers decided to set up a business in the recently flourishing trade of the wine business. C.V.N.E., Compañía Vinicola del Norte de España (The Northern Spanish Wine Company) or la Cuné, as it is commonly known in Haro, was created. This cellar still reflects the origins of the company and is kept in the traditional neighborhood of the Haro station.
The Cune winery in Haro, is made up of a group of buildings, mostly from the 19th century and arranged around a courtyard surrounded by pavilions for the purpose of wine production, aging, and bottling.
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.