2007 Montecillo Rioja Gran Reserva

2007 Montecillo Rioja Gran Reserva

2007 Montecillo Rioja Gran Reserva

Clean, brilliant, deep ruby red wine with very perfumed mature fruit aromas. Complex and elegant. Satin textured, showing fine tannins and a seductive leather palate. Sleek and refined liquorice tinged finish.

Aged in handcrafted French and American oak casks for 26 months. The wine was then rounded off in the bottle for at least 36 months before it was released. Both ageing techniques granting this wine Gran Reserva status and the highest Rioja quality.

Wine Enthusiast (91/100)
Dry, leafy aromas of tobacco, herbs, wood smoke, raspberry and cherry are classic Rioja. This has a mature, smooth, silky feel to it, although acidity is present and accounted for. Flavors of spiced tomato, vanilla, berry, brine and tobacco finish earthy and loamy. Drink through 2019.

Wine & Spirits (91/100)
A clean, vigorous and bright 2007, this wine has a classical finesse. The zesty fruit leans toward roasted tomato flavors, wrapped up in fine tannins to produce a tangy bitterness that wants food. It would be delicious with a salad of duck confit.

Established in 1870, Bodegas Montecillo is one of the oldest wineries in the D.O. Rioja. The name, Montecillo (or little mountain) speaks to the irregular topography of the Rioja vineyards. Surrounded by vines and close to the waters of the majestic Ebro river, the city of Fuenmayor is set amongst flat topped hills, and in the distance, the distinctive rocky mass of the Cantabrian Mountains.

Montecillo’s ancient underground bodega houses hand stacked bottles that remain undisturbed until reaching optimal roundness, including vintages that date back to 1926, the year that the Rioja Designation of Origin was created. The wines are crafted to enjoy a long bottle life; they continue bottle ageing longer than those from other wineries in the region.

Montecillo is also renowned for its female winemakers; led by oenologist Mercedes Garcia.

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.