A beautiful, supple, dense Rioja, drinking beautifully. Meaty with deep berry fruit aromas, hints of cedar, oak and spice. Produced purely from Tempranillo, and aged in new French oak barriques for 16 months, this wine shows all the elegance of the variety, medium-full bodied and smooth. Meaty with sweet berry fruits think strawberry and raspberry with cherry too, integrated oak and good acidity. It's simply a beautiful attractive Rioja, not old school but not ultra modern either, the emphasis is on the sweet fruit that is fresh and alive with lots of other interesting nuances. 2012 was a warm and dry year, when some vines were blocked and stopped ripening the grapes. Surprisingly enough, many wines have retained more freshness than what the natural conditions of the year anticipated. Valenciso's 2012 Reserva has more stuffing and power than the 2011 and comes from a year that was saved by some rains in September and big temperature contrasts between day and night. It's very tasty, almost salty (the words of Jean Gonon from St Joseph saying our wines are salty, to be enjoyed with food. There is no room for sweetness in our wines," comes to my mind). It's a modern classical Rioja in the making, still young but showing some development and incipient complexity. These wines develop slowly and nicely in bottle and seem to hit the spot after some eight years after the harvest." 93+pts Luis Gutierrez The Wine Advocate
