Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Valenciso Reserva is pure Tempranillo from argilo-calcareous soils around Haro cropped at 38 hectoliters per hectare, fermented in cement vats with native yeasts, and aged for 16 months in French oak barrels, one third of which are new. 2007 was a cold, wet, Atlantic and difficult vintage, where the date of the harvest made a big difference. At Valenciso they started on October 14 and the wine is quite tight at the moment, with subtle and elegant notes of red and black fruit, cedar wood, nutmeg and vanilla. The characteristic that strikes me as more important here is the balance, something that Valenciso seems to be quite good at, producing classically proportioned wines with the right amount of extraction, acidity and wood. It should age very well. This wine represents the bulk of the 100,000 bottles produced by the winery. Drink 2014-2022.
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.