Winemaker Notes
Bright, lively cherry red, with subtle hints of youthful violet. Wonderful aromatic intensity, dominated by ripe, dark fruit, sloes and brambles with some woodland berries. There is also a light toasty note with some elegant balsamic undertones from the barrel maturation. It is full and powerful in the palate, with ripe, fine tannins, which will hold the wine in balance for many years. It is complex and full, balanced and elegant, a supreme expression of Tempranillo and Rioja Alavesa.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Blackberries, chocolate, violets and a hint of tar. It’s full bodied with chewy tannins and plenty of richness and structure, yet it remains linear and long. Tempranillo. Needs some time to soften. Try after 2023.
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Wine Enthusiast
Dark ruby in the glass, this wine offers aromas of cassis, anisette and mocha. It opens up on the palate, with a mélange of cooling herb flavors, notably licorice, clove and eucalyptus, which make way for blackberry, black cherry and vanilla. Opulent tannins float into a dark-chocolate and mint finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Produced with grapes from their La Romera vineyard in the village of Labastida, the 2018 Pagos de Viña Real is pure Tempranillo. It's from a plot of almost two hectares planted 40 years ago on clay and stony (boulder) soils at the foot of the Toloño Mountain, and they wanted the wine to reflect the expression of the place rather than the fruit. It fermented in small vats with indigenous yeasts followed by malolactic and aging with lees in 300-liter French oak barrels. This is also a completely different wine from the previous vintages, now only from a specific vineyard and with less oak than in the past. It still has some grainy tannins that need polishing. It's full-bodied and has some rusticity that might require some time in bottle.
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.