Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is at a beautiful stage of evolution, showing aromas of dried flowers, bark, red berries and hints of tar and tea. It has an exceptionally elegant profile with a modern touch. The fruit is ethereal, the tannins finely etched and precise. The wine is crystalline, with purity and elegance that define its style. It is a blend of 84% tempranillo and 16% mazuelo. Aged for 26 months in French and American oak and a further 13 months in concrete. Approachable now, but will continue to evolve favorably.
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.