Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2006 Sierra Cantabria Crianza was sourced from 3 vineyard sites and aged for 15 months in seasoned American oak before bottling without filtration. Dark ruby-colored, it exhibits a pleasing perfume of wood smoke, pencil lead, spice box, violets, and blackberry. On the palate it leans toward elegance with a silky texture, some finesse, and succulent flavors. This balanced Rioja will evolve for 1-2 years and offer prime drinking from 2012 to 2021.
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.