Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
However, the 2005 Reserva has considerably more stuffing and should easily outdistance the 2006. It is a glass-coating opaque purple color with an already complex perfume of floral, mineral, spice, and black fruit elements. Dense and packed, this structured but impeccably balanced offering will evolve for 8-10 years and have a 30+ year lifespan.
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Wine Enthusiast
Tight, pure and just right from start to finish. The nose offers bold berry, roasted plum, vanilla and spice aromas along with exceptional clarity, and the palate is snappy and pure but also dark and loaded with coffee, chocolate, mocha and fine raspberry and cherry flavors. Slightly oaky but smooth late, and composed.
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.