Winemaker Notes
Black and red fruits mingle with evergreen forest and sappy herbs. This rich and savory Rioja is elegantly composed of fine-grained tannins and a persistent finish.
Blend: 85% Tempranillo, 10% Garnacha, and 5% Graciano
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The flagship red 2013 Reserva, the wine most people call simply Remelluri, was cropped from a cool, wet, challenging year, and it has a little less alcohol and higher acidity than the previous harvest. It had an élevage of 20 months in oak barriques. It has an herbal twist reflecting the conditions of the year, and it is developed and polished. It has the grippy, Nebbiolo-like tannins that are a signature of the Remelluri wines, a little more evident in a year like 2013
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Wine & Spirits
Brother-and- sister team Telmo Rodríguez (winemaker) and Amaia Rodríguez Hernandorena (viti- culturist) took over their family’s estate in 2009 and gained organic certification for their vines in 2014. Their vineyards are scattered through the hills of Sierra de Toloño, some reaching elevations of 3,100 feet, some dating back to 1918. The fruit for this Reserva comes from vines averaging 40 years old, planted between 1930 and 1989. It ferments spontaneously then ages in a mix of foudres and barrels. The fruit is pure berry juice for now, held in check by hard mineral tannins that block its length of flavor. This is built to age, needing time to stretch its muscles and lengthen out.
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.