2011 Altos Lanzaga, Telmo Rodriguez, Rioja

2011 Altos Lanzaga, Telmo Rodriguez, Rioja

Product: 34199
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2011 Altos Lanzaga, Telmo Rodriguez, Rioja

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Description

Following the exceptional 2010, the 2011 Altos de Lanzaga was the top of the range until Las Beatas arrived and stole the show. Still you should not overlook this exceptional cuvée from four plots of old, head-pruned vines in the village of Lanciego at 500-600 meters altitude, which are worked biodynamically. The wine fermented in 3,000-kilo oak vats with wild yeasts for 20 days and matured in 1,500 and 225-liter oak barrels for 18 months.

It is a little reticent, very young and a little closed, subtle and a little shy. The palate shows very good flavors of red berries and flowers, plus a great balance between alcohol and acidity that give the wine length and persistence. 2,530 bottles produced.

Telmo Rodriguez and Pablo Eguzkiza work about 18 hectares of vineyards in the villages of Lanciego and Labastida and produce some 45,000 bottles of Rioja per year. Their single-vineyard Las Beatas, in its second vintage, is even better than the debut 2011. As I decided last year after tasting the first vintage of this magnificent vineyard, located not so far from Remelluri, Rodríguez's family winery, I went to see the vines after a colossal snow storm.

You can sense the terroir walking up the terraced plots, you see that place has to produce a special wine. They have some small parcels of old vineyards and are replanting the rest.
94+/100 Luis Gutierrez, eRobertParker.com #218 Apr 2015 

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About this WINE

Telmo Rodriguez

Telmo Rodriguez

Telmo Rodriguez is one of the great Spanish winemakers. He travelled and learnt for many years before returning home to Rioja. In addition, he supervises négociant projects throughout Spain. One of his most acclaimed projects is in Ribera del Duero.

The charismatic Telmo has something of the prodigal about him, having now returned to his Riojan homestead to energise the great house of Remelluri. One should not overlook, however, his other properties, which explore some of the lesser-known areas of Spain and in each case seek to make superlative and characterful wines. Ribera del Duero is far from a lesser-known area, so it is to Telmo’s great credit, but to no-one’s surprise, that the wines he makes at Matallana are amongst the very best here too.

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Tempranillo/Tinto Fino

Tempranillo/Tinto Fino

A high quality red wine grape that is grown all over Spain except in the hot South - it is known as Tinto Fino in Ribera del Duero, Cencibel in La Mancha and Valdepenas and Ull de Llebre in Catalonia. Its spiritual home is in Rioja and Navarra where it constitutes around 70% of most red blends.

Tempranillo-based wines tend to have a spicy, herbal, tobacco-like character accompanied by ripe strawberry and red cherry fruits. It produces fresh, vibrantly fruit driven "jovenes" meant for drinking young. However Tempranillo really comes into its own when oak aged, as with the top Riojas  where its flavours seem to harmonise perfectly with both French and American oak, producing rich, powerful and concentrated wines which can be extraordinarily long-lived.

In Ribera del Duero it generally sees less oak - the exception being Vega Sicilia where it is blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and then aged for an astonishing 7 years in oak and is unquestionably one of the world`s greatest wines.

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