Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2004 Vina Bosconia Reserva is a blend of 80% Tempranillo, 15% Garnacho and the remaining 5% Mazuelo and Graciano aged for five years in used barrels, racked twice per year and fined with egg whites before being bottled unfiltered. Dark ruby-colored, with notes of beef blood, iron, antique shop, incense, blood orange and a touch of volatile acidity, the palate is very fresh, with good concentration, clear flavors and enough grip and fruit to age gracefully. A perfumed and feminine great Rioja. The Bosconia vineyard wines are the only ones from Lopez de Heredia bottled in Burgundy bottles. Drink now-2024.
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Wine & Spirits
A blend of tempranillo (80 percent), garnacha (15 percent), mazuelo and graciano, all grown at El Bosque, near the family’s cellars in Haro, this aged in barrel for five years, then in bottle until its recent release. The aroma is mature, with a miso-like note, while the flavors are brighter, like fragrant red berries with a juicy clarity. Earthy notes of truffles and rooty, carrot-like scents come up in the finish, complex and pretty. This is ready to drink with the dark meat of roasted game birds.
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.