El Coto Crianza 2017

James Suckling 92

“A rich, fruity red with plum, light chocolate and vanilla character. It’s medium-to full-bodied with round, chewy tannins and a flavorful finish.” Drink or hold.

Wine & Spirits 92 "Best Buy"
“This wine’s fresh anise scent has the underlying earthiness of tripe, and it would be pretty delicious with a bowl of tripe braised in red wine. It offers the kind of richness without weight that allows the fragrant peppery and cherry-skin flavors to last through the dark, earthy tannins, a little bitter, a little oaky, but cool in the end.”

El Coto de Rioja, located in Oyón, was founded in 1970 by a group of winemakers committed to creating a new type of Rioja. Its first bottling was released in 1975. Today, El Coto is the leading brand in Spain and among the top-selling Spanish wines in Europe.

Five hundred hectares of estate vineyards are located in La Rioja Alta's village of Cenicero, near the east bank of the Najerilla River, a tributary of the Ebro. Facing northwest, vineyard soils are mostly ferric clay, sand and limestone, which contribute structure, power and elegant minerality, respectively, to the wines. The recently incorporated Los Almendros estate, shared with Barón de Ley, adds an additional 300 hectares of vineyards to the impressive estate holdings. Additional grapes are sourced from 2,000 hectares in Rioja Alavesa. Here, limestone, clay and stony soils make aromatic, expressive wines with great finesse.

With the exception of "Coto Real" Reserva and "Coto de Imaz" Gran Reserva, all reds are aged in new American oak barrels, the classic Rioja marriage of wine and wood. Their seductive cigar box, spice and herbal aromas and silky red fruit flavors are the essence of fine traditional Rioja.