This is an extraordinary Rioja from the incredible 2016 vintage. I was blown away by how good it was when I tasted it this week. This wine is the complete package, with some nice age to it, so you can drink it now or cellar it for a decade or two. The Arana family, one of the three that own La Rioja Alta, has a long history of producing excellent wines, and we’ve enjoyed several older vintages of this bottling, all of which have been outstanding. The 2016 Viña Arana Gran Reserva is a blend of 95% Tempranillo and 5% Graciano from estate vineyards in Rioja Alta, aged for three years in in-house coopered American oak barrels and three more years in bottle. 2016 is an excellent vintage and is known for its balance and elegance, and this wine exemplifies those qualities. Red wines from Spain, particularly Rioja, remain some of the best buys in old-world wines, and this one is not to be missed!
John Gilman 93 points! The 2016 Viña Arana Gran Reserva from La Rioja Alta is a ripe wine, tipping the scales at 14.5 percent octane in this vintage, but also beautifully balanced. It is composed from a blend of ninety-five percent tempranillo and five percent graciano, with the wine raised for three years in used American oak barrels, with the average age of each cask three years of age at the outset. The bouquet is outstanding, offering up scents of black raspberries, cassis, cigar ash, cloves, fresh nutmeg, woodsmoke, a lovely base of soil, nutskin and coconutty American oak. On the palate the wine is pure, focused and full-bodied, with lovely depth of fruit, fine soil inflection, ripe, buried tannins and a long, tangy, complex and impeccably balanced finish. This is a lovely bottle of old school Rioja that is already drinking quite nicely at age eight, but it has a fine structural chassis and decades and decades of life ahead of it. (Drink between 2024 - 2075)
Wine Advocate (Luis Gutierrez) 93 points! "The 2016 Viña Arana Gran Reserva is an elegant blend of Tempranillo with 5% Graciano matured in used American oak barrels for three years. During this time, the wine was manually racked from barrel to barrel, with the help of a candle, six times. It's ripe at 14.5% alcohol, with pungent notes of forest floor and truffles, dark spices and an earthy touch. It has a powerful palate, with very good freshness and acidity, reflecting the cooler year. It has some tannins that would welcome food. 60,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in July 2021."
2016 La Rioja Alta Rioja Viña Arana Gran Reserva
2016 La Rioja Alta Rioja Viña Arana Gran Reserva
This is an extraordinary Rioja from the incredible 2016 vintage. I was blown away by how good it was when I tasted it this week. This wine is the complete package, with some nice age to it, so you can drink it now or cellar it for a decade or two. The Arana family, one of the three that own La Rioja Alta, has a long history of producing excellent wines, and we’ve enjoyed several older vintages of this bottling, all of which have been outstanding. The 2016 Viña Arana Gran Reserva is a blend of 95% Tempranillo and 5% Graciano from estate vineyards in Rioja Alta, aged for three years in in-house coopered American oak barrels and three more years in bottle. 2016 is an excellent vintage and is known for its balance and elegance, and this wine exemplifies those qualities. Red wines from Spain, particularly Rioja, remain some of the best buys in old-world wines, and this one is not to be missed!
John Gilman 93 points! The 2016 Viña Arana Gran Reserva from La Rioja Alta is a ripe wine, tipping the scales at 14.5 percent octane in this vintage, but also beautifully balanced. It is composed from a blend of ninety-five percent tempranillo and five percent graciano, with the wine raised for three years in used American oak barrels, with the average age of each cask three years of age at the outset. The bouquet is outstanding, offering up scents of black raspberries, cassis, cigar ash, cloves, fresh nutmeg, woodsmoke, a lovely base of soil, nutskin and coconutty American oak. On the palate the wine is pure, focused and full-bodied, with lovely depth of fruit, fine soil inflection, ripe, buried tannins and a long, tangy, complex and impeccably balanced finish. This is a lovely bottle of old school Rioja that is already drinking quite nicely at age eight, but it has a fine structural chassis and decades and decades of life ahead of it. (Drink between 2024 - 2075)
Wine Advocate (Luis Gutierrez) 93 points! "The 2016 Viña Arana Gran Reserva is an elegant blend of Tempranillo with 5% Graciano matured in used American oak barrels for three years. During this time, the wine was manually racked from barrel to barrel, with the help of a candle, six times. It's ripe at 14.5% alcohol, with pungent notes of forest floor and truffles, dark spices and an earthy touch. It has a powerful palate, with very good freshness and acidity, reflecting the cooler year. It has some tannins that would welcome food. 60,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in July 2021."
