Winemaker Notes
A perfect partner to a Leg of New Season Welsh Lamb stuffed with wild garlic, rosemary and anchovies.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I had the chance to taste a bottle of the 2001 Viña Tondonia Reserva 10 years after it was released, and the wine has evolved beautifully and quite slowly—at least that is the case for these bottles that have been kept in the winery for all these years. It's austere and elegant, with balance and concentration, polished tannins and a chalky texture, long tasty and dry. This is lively and should continue developing in bottle for quite some time. Rating: 96+
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James Suckling
This is very fine and polished after a decade since its release onto the market. It's medium-bodied with ultra-fine tannins with a racy and silky texture. Energetic acidity gives it tension and brightness. Still a little tight considering its age.
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Wine & Spirits
Combine old vines, traditional winemaking and the stunning 2001 season—then wait nine years. What you end up with is a wine built in four dimensions, the power and density of fruit rounded by time, the graceful hand of the winemaker capturing the season in subtle scents of rose and cherry-skin tannin. Everything about the wine is gentle while remarkably long, set to develop for another nine years or more.
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Wine Spectator
This polished red delivers mature flavors of dried cherry, forest floor, tobacco and vanilla on a graceful frame. Fresh and lively.
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.