Cuentavinas Alomado Rioja 2019
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James
Suckling -
Jeb
Dunnuck -
Wine
Enthusiast -
Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
The uniting stylistic factor of Alomado, Los Yelsones, and El Tiznado is a crystalline purity of fruit that rides the knife’s edge between the power of great classic Spanish wine and the new school of freshness and elegance. Alomado is the most open and expressive of the three, and its fleshed out profile shows the fresh elegance of the Sonsierra Riojana.
Blend: 80% Tempranillo, 10% Viura, 6% Malvasía, 4% Calagraño
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A very pretty and polished red with cherry, berry, strawberry and citrus aromas and flavors. It’s medium bodied with round, nicely integrated tannins and a flavorful finish. Fresh, yet structured. Whole-berry sensibility to this. Drink or hold.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Alomado is darker and richer, with chocolaty red and black fruits as well as gorgeous spring flowers, violets, and sappy herb notes developing with time in the glass. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it has outstanding purity, silky tannins, and a great finish. It's already drinking nicely today yet should easily evolve for 10-15 years. This cuvée is 80% Tempranillo with the balance a field blend of white varieties. It spent 18 months in used barrels. Best After 2022
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of black currant, cherry and baking spice set the scene for flavors of pomegranate, purple fig, caramel, dark chocolate and orange zest. Slightly chewy tannins are offset by brilliant acidity that lingers on the palate and is joined by a closing note of butterscotch.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Alomado was produced with a field blend of Tempranillo with some 20% white grapes—Viura, Malvasía Riojana and Calagraño—from a vineyard in the process of being certified organic; the vineyard was planted in 1960 in Finca Ribarrey, the last valley of San Vicente de la Sonsierra, on silty and clay soils with limestone and 60% boulders. The destemmed grapes were co-fermented in small oak vats, and like with the other wines, the fermentation starts with indigenous yeasts and finishes with selected yeasts. The wine went through malolactic in used 500-liter oak barrels, where it matured for 18 months. It's much fresher than the 2018 I tasted last time and in line with the 2020 I tasted next to it, despite the 14% alcohol. The oak is neatly integrated and the tannins are fine. Best After 2022
Other Vintages
2020-
James
Suckling -
Robert
Parker
Cuentaviñas is the new personal project of Eduardo Eguren, the fifth generation of the Eguren family, an illustrious name in the world of wine. Eduardo spent his childhoods in vineyards with his grandfather Guillermo and his summers between barrels with his father, Marcos. Upon joining the family company, Eduardo was responsible for all hands-on technical aspects of winemaking at some of the family’s most prestigious projects: Sierra Cantabria, Vinedos de Paganos, and Teso la Monja, where Eduardo was head winemaker.
Having grown up immersed in the world of wine, Eduardo dreamed of creating a project of his own where he could tell the story of vineyards, cultivating the essence of the vines rather than simply making wine. When he inherited 3 vineyards from his grandfather, Edurado embarked on this project, in which he could put into practice everything he had seen and learned on his journey with great winemaking masters. His wife Carlota is his partner in the project, and their work as husband and wife very much embodies what many in the United States have come to know as the "new Spain."
The name Cuentaviñas is a play on words – cuentacuentos in Spanish translates to "story-teller" in English. At his new project, Eduardo’s philosophy is to work as a cuentaviñas or “vineyard-teller,” living and breathing each site and translating this expression into the bottle. He works as a consummate vigneron; acting as winemaker, vineyard manager, and marketer for his products. For now, the project is so small that pruning, leaf pulling, plowing by horse, selecting cover crops, and digging soil pits are all carried out by Eduardo himself..Who better to tell the story of these spectacular microparcels than a man who grew up on the streets of San Vicente de la Sonsierra, living and breathing the revival of quality winemaking in this historical medieval Rioja village.
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.