Winemaker Notes
#9 Wine Enthusiast Top 100 of 2020
Brilliant ruby color, with russet tones. Mature and elegant, its aromatic richness is changing and subtle, becoming more apparent as the wine breathes. Notes of toast and coconut followed by tertiary aromas (leather, wet earth), and red fruit and dried fruit. Round, silky tannins, persistent and complex aftertaste.
Ideal accompaniment for roast suckling lamb, game, or red meat.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
This dark, relatively tight-knit Rioja proves that the Gran Reserva category doesn't just indicate the supremely well-aged, relaxed and reposeful style of Rioja, but can also serve to draw drinkers' attention to outstanding wines of density and tenacity which still have a way to run along their potential ageing trajectories. Look out for dark, urgent fruits here sweetened and back-lit by cunningly angled oak, with intense, deep, fresh and searching flavours in which the 10% of Graciano seems to be working overtime. A Rioja of innate drama.
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Wine Enthusiast
Classic Rioja aromas of graphite, cherry, plum and oak are lightly toasted and spicy. On the palate, this offers chewy depth and impeccable balance. Ripe, heady plum, cassis and berry flavors are also nuanced and elegant, while this gran reserva from a ripe vintage tastes of vanilla and mild oak on the finish. For an affordable high-quality gem, look no further. Drink through 2028.
Editors' Choice -
James Suckling
Lots of vanilla, chocolate-coated blackberries, cedar, tobacco and glazed dark cherries. Medium to full body, succulent tannins and a fruit-driven but tangy finish. Drink in 2021.
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Wine Spectator
This polished red is focused and harmonious. Black cherry, tea, licorice, dried orange and spice notes mingle over firm, well-integrated tannins, while orange peel acidity keeps this lively. Expressive, in the traditional style. Drink now through 2024.
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.