El Coto Rioja Coto De Imaz Reserva 2005

Winery: El Coto

Varietal: Tempranillo

For millennia, the Tempranillo grape varietal has been esteemed and revered by winemakers in their native Spain. These grapes are packed full of intense and fascinating flavors, often rewarding wine drinkers with notes of tobacco, leather, plum and herbs alongside their spicy and full bodied character. Their thick, black skins result in their wines being very deep red in color, and often high in tannins. As such, Tempranillo grapes are usually blended with other fine varietals to produce exceptionally balanced and delicious blended wines, such as those found in La Riot and other important wine regions around the world. Despite them being a notoriously tricky varietal to grow, their popularity continues to increase, and winemakers continue to impress the world with this excellent example of a red wine grape.

Region: La Rioja

Spanish wines have always been packed full of character and tradition, making Spain a fascinating country for any fan of Old World wines. By far the most beloved and well known wine region in Spain is La Rioja, a lush and fertile region in the north of the country, famed for its superb single variety and blended red wines, usually made from Tempranillo and Garnacha varietal grapes. These two key grape varietals have been cultivated in this part of Spain for centuries, and are capable of expressing not only the rich, delicious fruit flavors they carry, but also the finer features of their terroir. La Rioja's terroirs are fine ones indeed, with a range of mineral rich soils, and climatic conditions which are ideal for viticulture, resulting in wines of real character and distinction.

Country: Spain

For over two thousand years, Spain has been responsible for much of Europe's wine production, making the very best of native grape varietals, and more recently experimenting with and perfecting wines made from imported grapes. Of course, the region of La Rioja is renowned world-wide for the quality and characteristics of its wines, which benefit greatly from the warm, dry continental climate of the area, and the fertile soils of the Ebro river basin. However, there is far more to Spanish produce than the complex, aromatic and earthy red wine of this region, as a result of the vast range of wine making traditions and practices, and terrains and climatic conditions found across the country. The region Castilla y Leon produces some of Europe's finest white wines, and the sparkling wines of Cava and the sherries of Jerez are firm favorites for wine lovers around the world.