Sierra de Tolono Raposo Tempranillo 2016
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James
Suckling -
Whisky
Advocate
Product Details
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Winemaker Notes
Sierra de Tolono Raposo is the Tempranillo from Villabuena, aged in large oak barrels. Crunchy brambles and red cherry fruit segue into a palate that's savory, dense and serious with the potential to age.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Plenty of spicy saffron and clove aromas hover over ripe red plums and mulberries. The palate has nice fruit-focus and depth with good tannin-weight and detail.
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Whisky Advocate
There is a new red from the village of Villabuena de Álava, a warmer place that tends to deliver more Mediterranean wines than the cooler Rivas de Tereso, and the wines are gentler and rounder, with a touch of aromatic herbs. The 2016 Raposo is the first vintage produced from some old plots planted with old vines, Tempranillo with intense flavors (the old vines have other grapes, but they represent a very small percentage) fermented with indigenous yeasts and matured in 3,000-liter oak vats for some 12 months.
Other Vintages
2020-
Robert
Parker
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Robert
Parker
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Wine &
Spirits
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James
Suckling -
Robert
Parker
High up in the foothills of the Sierra de Toloño, in Rioja Alavesa, Sandra Bravo works in some of the oldest, and highest altitude vineyards in Rioja, growing Garnacha, Tempranillo, Viura and some Graciano. This young winemaker who worked in France, New Zealand, and Italy before coming back to her native land translates the mountainous landscape into pure and expressive wines.
She has a small winery in Villabuena de Álava, where she works with steel, anforas, and old wood. From that area she also work on various micro-plots, being able to harvest multiple varietals from micro-terroirs that together form a fresh, beautiful image of the area.
In her own words:
“I was studying Engineering and Enology in Rioja and then I was working in wineries of Bordeaux, Tuscany, New Zealand and California. When I came back to Spain I spent 7 years in Priorat. All that experience gave me an open point of view to make different wines here in Rioja (where I come from). I have to say Priorat really influenced me to make artisanal wines, and to understand that the most important is the vineyard, the vineyard with soul.
When I came back to Rioja in 2012, I decided to make wines respecting what the vineyard give and always looking for freshness. I was in love with this area in Rioja Alavesa, calcareous soil, small plots, Mediterranean herbs and always North wind with high altitude (right in the mountain that gives my name’s project: Sierra de Toloño)… it was perfect! Because all of this my wines are really mineral.
The wines are fresh and not too oaky, I try to do minimal intervention in the cellar, then I can keep wines alive into the bottle. In Rivas de Tereso (650 m altitude) I have the vineyards of Sierra de Toloño (Red and White) and two top wines: La Dula, which is planted to Garnacha and Rivas de Tereso, planted to Tempranillo."
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.