Winemaker Notes
It matches with any kind of meat and mushrooms rice. Some tasty or oily fish such as tuna or cod. Medium-aged cheese such as emmental or gruyere.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Fresh and lively, this red shows bright fruit and spice flavors, with cherry, berry, vanilla and anise notes that mingle over light tannins and orange peel acidity. Harmonious and graceful, expressive and alluring.
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine offers a mix of floral, berry and earthy aromas on the nose. It reflects its fine vintage, displaying firm tannins on a tight palate. Dried plum, cherry, tomato and herbal flavors finish with tension and wiry freshness. Drink through 2027.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2005 Faustino I Gran Reserva is well-built and substantial on the palate. TASTING NOTES: This wine exhibits appealing aromas and flavors of black fruit and graphite. Enjoy it with a grilled, lightly-seasoned ribeye. (Tasted: August 11, 2021, Oakland, CA)
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.