Winemaker Notes
Blend: 93% Tempranillo, 4% Mazuelo, 2% Graciano, 1% Garnacha
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The blend for the 2010 Rioja Reserva varies depending on the growing season. In the warm and ripe 2009 it was 93% Tempranillo, 4% Mazuelo and 2% Graciano and 1% Garnacha Tinta, always from their own vineyards and hand-harvested between October 2 and 23. Maria the winemaker thinks the Garnacha does not add much to their blend. The grapes fermented separately in stainless-steel vats and the wine aged for 21 months in American oak barrels. There is gob-smacking precision and elegance here. It's a pure wine with no oak that is super harmonious, floral and fragrant. I simply fell in love with the nose. Now onto the palate. The entry is really fluid, and then it explodes in your mouth, filling it along a thread of fine acidity making it long and tasty. It has the same astonishing purity and harmony, focus and precision found in the nose. This has to be the best Reserva from Murrieta in recent times. Bravo! One million bottles produced, but all the wine is one single lot and all the bottles you can find are exactly the same just they are bottled continuously for four months. Mind boggling quality for the price asked.
-
Wine Spectator
Spicy aromas lead to flavors of vanilla, cherry, fresh herb and mineral in this expressive red. Though oaky notes are prominent, there's a core of focused fruit, and the light structure is fresh and balanced. Graceful and alluring. Drink now through 2021.
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.