Winemaker Notes
Intense purple color with violet glints. Highly aromatic with black fruit and ripe sloe notes. Intense minerality that, together with the vanilla, spice and tobacco notes from the barrel, give the wine a great character. Oily, rich and intense with a sweetness right across the mouth, showing great finesse. Wellbalanced acidity with the alcohol, with the typical “Valpiedra” freshness predominant. A long, cool and mineral finish, with a touch of fine woods.
Pair with vegetables and beans casseroles, hen soup. For meats it goes better with white ones, turkey, sock lamb and pork. It perfectly matches with rice with rabbit and stewed poularde.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The modern, clean and fresh 2021 Cantos de Valpiedra was cropped from a cooler year that delivered a fresh wine that also has power, juicy fruit and ripe, fine tannins. It has a moderate 13.5% alcohol and very good freshness and acidity that make it very pleasant, balanced and easy to drink. This is a modern Crianza that was aged for 12 months in used barriques. 100,000 bottles produced.
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James Suckling
Some sweet spices and chocolate with plums and citrus. Savory and firm with medium body. Juicy finish despite the tight, chewy wood tannins at the end.
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Wine Enthusiast
Mouthwatering cherries, red plum, and mixed herbs move through the palate with abundant while fine tannins and a juicy, lengthy finish.
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.