Winemaker Notes
Fresh and serious, botanical notes and mineral touches (limestone) and a wonderful finesse and volume. It is like looking at the vineyard and letting yourself be caught by an impression of purity and harmony.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Lastly, the 2018 Viña Gena is all Tempranillo raised in French barrique and concrete egg. Its deep purple hue gives way to a medium-bodied, elegant, pure, almost pretty Rioja with ample cassis and lighter berry fruits as well as notes of spring flowers, spice, and tobacco. More about finesse and purity than overt power, it still has good concentration, wonderful balance, and a great finish. Drink it over the coming 10-15 years. Best After 2022
Rating: 93+
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James Suckling
Very pretty berry and chocolate aromas with mocha and cedar. It’s medium-to full-bodied with linear tannins that run down the wine and finish in a bright and persistent fashion. Give it two or three years to soften. Drink after 2023.
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Wine & Spirits
This wine might be a juice bomb if its dark tannic structure didn’t hold it so well. It delivers a raft of black-cherry flavor and cocoa notes with grace.
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.