Winemaker Notes
An expressive nose of black raspberry and potpourri leaps from the glass. Dark fruit and baking spices are suspended in a firm core balanced by acidity. Drink now or hold in the cellar.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
Saturated ruby. Displays a complex array of ripe red/blue fruit, spice and floral qualities on the pungent nose, with hints of cedary oak and cola in the background. Sweet and broad on the palate, showing excellent depth to its Chambord, cherry-vanilla, spicecake and candied rose flavors. Finishes with outstanding persistence, repeating floral and spice qualities and sneaky tannins that fold quickly into the wine's intense fruit.
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.