Winemaker Notes
Raposo is the Tempranillo from Villabuena, aged in large oak barrels. Crunchy brambles and red cherry fruit segue into a palate that’s savory, dense and serious with the potential to age.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
A fruity and straight-up Rioja with crushed-berry and spice character. Medium to full body. Flavorful finish.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The village red 2017 Raposo comes from two plots of old vines planted mostly with Tempranillo and a little Graciano in Villabuena de Álava, a warmer place that tends to deliver more Mediterranean wines than the cooler Rivas de Tereso. It fermented with indigenous yeasts and matured in 2,700-liter oak vats for one year. The nose is clean with notes of berries, wild herbs and flowers, quite attractive. It's tasty and ripe, with a fruit-driven nose and a mellow mouthfeel, denoting a warmer place and vintage.
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.