Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Lots of fruit here. Full-bodied, round and flavorful. Dark berries, chocolate and hints of wet earth. Layered and flavorful. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Compact but elegant, showing black cherry, anise and blackberry notes, interwoven with cedar, forest floor, floral and backing spice elements. Rich, pure and full-bodied, with velvety tannins structuring the finish. Drink now through 2028.
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.