Winemaker Notes
Intense garnet color. Very interesting on the nose, with fine aromas of toasty oak, pencil lead, leather, black cherry and black berry. Very fleshy on the mouth, with a strong fruity flavor, well structured and wide open. It has an impeccable balance and a persistent aftertaste.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Rich, savory spices with wild, dried herbs on top of the blackberries, white pepper and black olives. A juicy, tight and chewy Rioja with lots of ripe plummy fruit in a medium to full body.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The juicy, creamy and fresh 2020 Orben is in the process of getting organic certification. It's Tempranillo from different plots in the Rioja Alavesa, each fermented separately with indigenous yeasts, since 2020 with some stems, and matured in Darnajou and Taransaud barrels, 50% new and 50% second-use, for 14 months. It's ripe without excess, with 14.54% alcohol, power and concentration coupled with freshness and balance.
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.