Winemaker Notes
Blend: 90% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Fincas de Ganuza is a blend of Tempranillo with 10% Graciano that is very balsamic with aromas of incense and autumn forest wrapped around a core of perfectly-ripened bramble fruit. It has a kind of wild character, is still a baby, and looks much younger than it is. The palate is medium-bodied with good weight of fruit and fine-grained tannins. There's a little less acidity and vivacity than I expected. I was gob-smacked when I read this wine matured in new oak barrels for 26 months as it doesn't show at all.
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Wine Enthusiast
Ripe, concentrated aromas of plum and prune come with a horsey accent. This feels wide and a touch clumsy, but friendly. Mature, baked flavors of raspberry, blackberry, mocha and herbs finish long and solid, with a hint of tobacco.
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.