Bodegas Altanza Reserva 2015
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Suckling
James -
Enthusiast
Wine
Product Details
Your Rating
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Winemaker Notes
You will be pleasantly surprised by our Reserva, the wine that defines the style and ethos of our winery and can be enjoyed at any moment.
Altanza Reserva will enhance and complement a wide range of meaty stews, roasted meats, grilled blue fish and white fish with different sauces.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A fruity red with toasted oak and some chocolate and spice. It’s medium-bodied with medium round tannins and a lightly chewy, fruity finish. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
Violet red in color, this wine offers aromas of blackberry, violet and oregano. It feels good on the palate, with polished tannins and flavors of stewed plums, blackberry preserves, cigar box and rose water that wrap up in a cooling finish.
Tempranillo is the only varietal planted in the Estate. Yields are low, green pruning and careful selection with no more than 8-10 bunches left in every plant combine to produce an average yield of only 3 lbs per plant, well below the the 6500 kg/Ha limit in Rioja. All grapes are handpicked in small cases and quickly taken to the winery.
Only native yeasts are used. Malolactic is done in large Allier oak vats, partiallyin oak for the wines up to Crianza and completely for the Reservas and Gran Reservas. Aging takes place in new or semi-new French (85%), American (10%) and Russian (5%) oak casks. The large Allier vats are also used to store the wine prior to bottling. The wine is only slightly filtered before being bottled, except the Lealtanza 2001 that sees no filtration.
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.