Rioja Las Vinas de Eusebio - Tempranillo & Graciano

The 2016 Las Viñas de Eusebio is a blend of Tempranillo with 10% Graciano that has great finesse and complexity. It matured in a 1,600-liter oak foudre and 225- and 500-liter oak barrels to make enough wine to fill some 7,000 bottles. It has a quite classical profile, with a mixture of fruit and spice (some new oak was used in the élevage), and in a cool year like 2016, it should have all the ingredients to develop nicely in bottle. It has chalky tannins from the limestone soils, which adds to that serious and classical profile. It might even need a little more time in bottle to polish the tannins a little bit. This fermented mostly destemmed.

Some wines, like Gabaxo, Las Viñas de Eusebio and Losares, could not be produced in 2017 because the frost decimated the crop. But most of the wines I tasted were from 2016, which seems to be a great year for reds here. Luis Gutiérrez 94/100