Winemaker Notes
The bouquet consists of mature red berries, with hints of smoke, vanilla, and spice. Well-structured in the mouth, this Crianza is expressive and meaty and possesses a good balance of red fruit and toasted flavors. The tannins are mature and lead to an elegant, long finish. While this wine can be enjoyed now, it will also keep for 5-10 years.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Dinastia Vivanco Crianza is made from 100% Tempranillo and aged for 16 months in French and American oak. Balsam wood, tobacco, cinnamon, clove, violets, and black fruit aromas lead to a ripe, sweetly-fruited, nicely proportioned Crianza that is likely to blossom for another 1-2 years and drink well through 2020.
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Wine Spectator
Velvety and voluptuous, this generous red delivers plum, blackberry, chocolate and toast flavors, with broad, soft tannins and just enough acidity to stay lively. The finish is graceful. Drink now through 2016. 55,000 cases made.
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.