La Antigua Clasico Crianza 2012
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Wilfred
Wong -
James
Suckling
Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
La Antigua Clasico Crianza is a wine of place. It is 100% from Sierra de la Demanda, a place of longevity, precision and minerality.
Blend: 70% Tempranillo, 20% Graciano and 10% Garnacha.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2012 La Antigua Clásico Crianza is a beautiful red wine basking with persistent ripe fruit. TASTING NOTES: This wine shines with excellent aromas and flavors of black fruit, earth accents, and a touch of oak. Pair it with a rotisserie leg of lamb. (Tasted: July 6, 2020, San Francisco, CA)
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James Suckling
I like the traditional flavors of dried fruits, walnut and balsamic. Full to medium body, dense fruit and a flavorful finish. Decadent at the end.
Other Vintages
2013-
James
Suckling
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James
Suckling
La Antigua is a unique wine coming from one of the most special and unknown territories of the Rioja region. Geographically speaking, Rioja is a valley that goes from East to West. Located to the north the mountains of Sierra Cantabria and to the South the unknown mountains of Sierra de La Demanda, where La Antigua vineyards are located. The northern facing vineyards of Sierra de la Demanda experience cooler temperatures resulting in grapes that are able to ripen more slowly hence showcasing flavors of greater balance and focus. In addition to the cooler conditions of this area, La Antigua is a place where the parcels are extremely small and steep. This terrain is almost impossible to mechanize, all the important vineyard work needs to be done by hand. The majority of the people who own these vineyards are local farmers who do not make wine, they only grow grapes, which in exchange they sell at top prices to the big bodegas mostly located in the north of the valley near the train tracks. In the case of La Antigua, both the vineyard work and winemaking is handled by the same people. This farm-winemaking unity is always a key factor to fashioning superior wines. Lastly and most importantly in Sierra de La Demanda we find among the oldest garnacha vines of Rioja.
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.