Winemaker Notes
#80 Wine Enthusiast Top 100 Cellar Selections of 2019
This wine shows a dark cherry red color with subtle purple hues. On the nose, aromas of tobacco, chocolate and spices stand out. On the palate, clear taste of cherry, plum and blackberries coming through. Well rounded tannins providing an elegant mouthfeel, full body and fresh finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Heady aromas of malted milk ball, ripe berry fruits and tobacco are warm and welcoming. Hailing from a warm year, this feels full but playful, with tannins that are only mildly scratchy. Flavors of vanilla, tobacco, butter, herb and dried berry fruit are textbook for Rioja gran reserva, while this takes a while to fully unfold on the finish. Drink through 2035.
Cellar Selection
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.