Marqués De Cáceres Rioja Reserva 2015 (Spain)

Description

• French oak
• Cherry
• Vanilla
• Silky tannins

Dark and dense ruby colour. Refined and complex aroma with a touch of cherry, vanilla and soft toasted notes. Balanced in the mouth, where the silky and well defined tannins are combined with exquisite flavours to reveal a pleasant fullness. This Reserva firmly follows in the steps of the 2012 vintage, which was awarded several prestigious prizes.

A red blend of 90% Tempranillo and 10% other varieties from a selection of old vineyards originating from Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa. Low yields, smaller than 5,000 kg/ha.

2015 has been, up to now, the second earliest harvest in the history of the Denominación de Origen, and this comes across in the wines and the hints they produce. Autumn and winter were very rainy, which left plenty of water reserves underground. In May warm temperatures and winds arrived, which really sped up the vines’ phenology. Summer was extremely hot and stormy. All of this, together with the wintry water reserve in the vineyards, made this a very quick cycle, advancing the area’s average dates by more than 15 days. Complete maturing throughout the year of high temperatures. Excellent notes of fruit and a great capacity to age these wines of selected plots.

Harvested by hand, meticulously deciding the optimal harvesting moment for each plot and each variety. Bunches are de-stemmed of their stalks with the greatest care. Temperaturecontrolled alcoholic fermentation. Prolonged maceration with the skins with the aim of extracting more colour, aromas and tannic structure. Malolactic fermentation in oak barrels and a stainless-steel tanks. Once the malolactic fermentation is finalised, all of the wines move to fine grain French oak barrels. Subsequent racking every 6 months. Wine spends a total time of 20 months in French oak barrels, divided equally between new barrels and oneand two-year old barrels. Ages for a minimum of 2 years in the bottle before launch.