Winemaker Notes
color: Vibrant red leading slightly towards amber. NOSE: Light fresh texture with notes of vanilla and dried berry aromas. TASTE: Rich, very dry, smooth, developed. Firm tannins and balance. Goes well with all meat dishes however prepared. A perfect partner to a Leg of New Season Welsh Lamb stuffed with wild garlic, rosemary and anchovies. Tempranillo (70%), Garnacho (20%), Graciano and Mazuelo (10%), all from our own vineyards.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Following the appreciation of the 2007 vintage from María José López de Heredia, the red 2007 Viña Tondonia Reserva is showing great, revealing unusual finesse and elegance. The nose is a little reticent but nuanced and complex, a little shy rather than explosive. The palate is medium-bodied, and the tannins are very refined. This has to be one of the finest vintages of Viña Tondonia Reserva of recent years.
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Wine & Spirits
Viña Tondonia is a collection of parcels centered on a rise above the Ebro River, where it forms a wide loop outside of Haro. The López de Heredia family farms these parcels as bush vines, blending their fruit into long-lived, vineyard-designated wines. This vintage, including 70 percent tempranillo and 20 percent garnacha with a little graciano and mazuelo, is a lovely, elegant Rioja in a classical mode. There is something magical about well-aged Rioja, and there is often something magical about Viña Tondonia, suggested by this wine’s gentle, lasting touch of bright, sunny cherry notes and deep earth tones, the flavors delicately saturated. Get some.
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.