Winemaker Notes
Blend: 95% Tempranillo, 5% Graciano
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Incorporating 5% Graciano, the Tempranillo-dominated 2012 Gaudium spent two years all in new French oak. It offers a ripe, sexy yet classic Rioja bouquet of black raspberry and cassis fruits, toasted spices, sandalwood, and dried flowers. Rich, full-bodied, with bright, yet integrated acidity, it's a rich, layered, incredibly impressive wine that will keep for two decades.
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Wine Enthusiast
Saturated berry, cassis and black-plum aromas are densely packed onto the nose of this tightly built iron-fisted Rioja. Berry, plum and cassis flavors are lightly toasted and spicy, while this is juicy and bold on the finish. Best from 2020–2024.
Cellar Selection
In 1970, Enrique Forner founded Marqués de Cáceres Unión Vitivinícola S.A., a historic alliance of growers in the village of Cenicero in the Rioja Alta subregion of Rioja. The enterprising Forner family has been devoted to the wine trade for five generations. Their search for the best vine growers and vineyards in Rioja and the introduction of a Bordeaux concept revolutionized the production and business model of the region. They work with one single objective: producing the highest quality wines. Today this obsession continues to be the leitmotif of Cristina Forner, the fifth generation of this distinguished wine family.
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.