Finca Allende Rioja Gaminde 2016
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Wine
Enthusiast -
Robert
Parker -
Wine &
Spirits -
James
Suckling
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Intense burgundy in color with a purple rim, this wine showcases powerful aromas of Mediterranean forest herbs, hints of balsamic and red forest berries intertwined with undertones of fresh ink. On the palate, the wine has balanced tannins, is intense and voluminous with a long, memorable finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Early reduction on the nose transitions to cool berry fruit and fine oak as this wine opens. The palate is fully built and saturated, with palpable tannins. Lightly toasted black-fruit flavors meld with mint, while ubiquitous oak cuddles a long, full finish. Hailing from an excellent year, this has a lot to offer; drink through 2030.
Editors' Choice -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The nose of the 2016 Gaminde is creamy, balsamic and spicy, with plenty of new oak undertones and ripe fruit without excess. This is a clean, modern, generously oaked Tempranillo, with plenty of tannins and oak-related flavors, and it needs a couple of years in bottle to digest the wood. It's nicely structured and shows power with balance in its style.
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Wine & Spirits
Miguel Angel de Gregorio farms his old vineyards in Briones with organic fertilizer and without chemical herbicides; at Gaminde, the bush vines date to 1942, planted on gravelly clay. He gives the fruit a six-day cold soak, then works by gravity, aging the wine post-fermentation in new French oak barrels for 16 months and bottling without filtration. This has the polish of de Gregorio’s other parcel selections, with more clarity of origin in its complex scents of piquillo peppers, violets and smoky game. Its tannins have an umami richness, their scent recalling freshly turned earth, layered under sleek dark fruit, all of it lifted by refreshing acidity integrated into the whole. Suited to long aging.
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James Suckling
Lots of ripe berry with cedar, mushroom and wet-earth undertones. It’s medium-to full-bodied with firm, linear tannins that are polished and focused. Drink or hold.
Other Vintages
2015-
Wine
Spectator -
Robert
Parker
Founded in 1986 by Miguel Ángel de Gregorio in the hillside town of Briones, Finca Allende is located in an ancient 17th century manor, set in a medieval town square within the heart of Rioja Alta. Roughly translated as ‘further,’ Allende’s philosophy is to go further towards creating the perfect Rioja. The majority of vines are plowed with mules, grapes are hand-harvested, triple-selected and manually punched-down, before undergoing extensive underground aging in both barrel and bottle. Known for producing round wines with great body and structure, each bottle is hand-crafted by and contains the signature of Miguel Ángel de Gregorio. Considered to be Spain’s first terroirist, Miguel Ángel’s sincere dedication to natural farming and preserving the integrity of Rioja Alta, are why he is one of the region’s most celebrated winemakers and a mastermind when it comes to making world class estate-grown wines.
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.