Winemaker Notes
The 2012 Bodegas Fernando Remirez de Ganuza Rioja Reserva is a glass-coating opaque purple color. A floral perfume, with mineral, spice, and black fruit elements. Dense & packed, this structured but impeccably balanced offering will evolve for 10 years & have a 30+ year lifespan.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
An older vintage library wine, 2012 Reserva is brimming in refined tannins, with an earthy, herbaceous profile of great depth and Old World sensibility. The red fruit at its core remains fresh and still relatively concentrated. This exceptional vintage had a snowy winter, but summer was hot and dry, with September hailstorms but relatively limited damage. For the Reserva and Gran Reserva, the producer typically adds 2-5% white grape skins to add acidity and structure, as well as color as the wine ages (the whites darkening rather than lightening). This is a tremendous, medium to full-bodied wine.
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.