INSIDER DEAL! 92-Point Rioja Garnacha

Highly recommended and highly discounted Spanish Garnacha! Don’t miss the 92-Point 2020 Ontanon LaGarnacha from Rioja, Spain.

If you love a good Spanish Garnacha like we do then today’s your day as we’ve got an excellent example from Rioja, Spain.

While Rioja is best known for Tempranillo, that was not always the case and in recent years there has been a resurgence in Garnacha plantings. Today we have an absolutely delicious wine from a long-time Garnacha producer and proponent, Bodegas Ontanon:

Bodegas Ontañón is a family-owned winery located in the heart of Rioja. For four generations, the Perez Cuevas family has cultivated vineyard land south of the Ebro River just outside the tiny town of Quel. Ontañón is the name of the mountain valley where the majority of the family’s vineyard land lies. The wines have been recognized with high accolades by press and critics across the world.

Ontañón Garnacha was created to delve into the finesse and elegance of the rich tradition of fine Garnacha wines from Rioja Oriental, specifically from Quel, where we have been carrying out for a decade a methodical work of recovering this variety by betting on the ancestral clones of the area, its poor soils and the altitude in vineyards that are located in areas bordering cultivation for this variety. In the production of Ontañón LaGarnacha we assemble different vineyard plots in the Sierra de Yerga, small remote Garnacha farms, sometimes over thirty years old and that sit on an amalgam of poor soils on slopes and hills.

Juicy, deep and complex, we give it a Taste Rating of 9 (91-93 points). But don’t just take our word for it on the quality of this wine, it also received 92 points from Vinous and 91 from James Suckling for the vintage we are offering today.

The wine also has a quite reasonable SRP of $25 but the only sellers currently have it even higher at $30-$35 per bottle. That’s not the way we roll here at Reverse Wine Snob…

For the next two days you can get 4 bottles of the 2020 Ontanon LaGarnacha Rioja for just $XX.95 ($XX.XX/bottle).

This 4-pack deal is available to ship to the following states: AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV and WY. (These states are dependent on the individual licenses of the offering winery and are not representative of all our deals. Every deal can have different, sometimes more, sometimes less, states available.)

Shipping is a flat $6.99 per order, no matter how many 4-packs you buy. Packages ship in cardboard (no styrofoam) via UPS Ground 5-10 days after the deal ends. If this is your first time ordering please check out the shipping section of our FAQ for more information.

Read on for our full review.

Clicking on the Add To Cart buttons above will take you to our checkout at shop.reversewinesnob.com. Once there you can adjust the quantity of 4-packs in your order. Ends Sunday 2/16/2025 at midnight (PT).

From the winery:

2020 HARVEST: A complex year in the Rioja countryside. The quality of the harvest was conditioned by a certain instability in the previous weather, with average rainfall above 550 (high compared to other campaigns) and accidents such as hail. After an explosive early bud break, the end of the cycle was reached with a stable berry weight higher than in 2019 and perfect phenolic ripening. The light rainfall in September, accompanied by the entry of a northerly wind and a drop in night temperatures, led to a greater balance and improvement of the qualitative parameters. The quality of the grapes increased as the days before the harvest went by.

PREPARATION: To extract the classic aromas of these Rioja Grenache, we work with different temperatures in the fermentation.
· 8 degrees in the pre-fermentation maceration
· 28 degrees at the beginning of the fermentation for the extraction of color
· 23 degrees for the fixation of the fruity aromas

We look for the sweet and enveloping tannin, the sensation of silkiness in the mouth. The sweet tannins of these garnachas are assembled with the tannin of the French and American oak barrels in the five months that the aging lasts. The barrels have American oak staves and French oak tops. The percentage of contact of the wine with the oak is the following:
· 70% American
· 30% French

The result is a sensation of length, finesse and roundness in the mouth, that is, the finesse that we look for in a wine that perfectly expresses the personality of the garnacha queleña.

Color: A bright, cherry-red wine, very lively and with darker shades at the rim.

Aroma: Very varietal, fruity and mineral nose, with enormous complexity and elegance. Floral notes that go towards red fruit such as cherry, plum and strawberries with a mineral and fresh sensation.

Taste: Vibrant acidity, persistent in the mouth and very enveloping. Elegance that is sustained by a silky and delicate mid-palate. Providing a velvety and long aftertaste that invites us to continue tasting it and enjoy it with the delicacy and subtlety that intoxicates us with each sip.

Vegan
14.5% Alcohol
Cork

And now on to our review:

The 2020 Ontanon LaGarnacha Rioja opens with a very pleasing, attractive aroma full of dark fruit, lots of sweet spice, touches of cedar, white pepper, vanilla and some mineral notes. It’s a great start.

Taking a sip reveals a balanced medium to full-bodied wine with juicy acidity plus good depth, structure and complexity. Featuring similar flavors to the nose and fine grippy tannins throughout, this is a very tasty wine.

It ends dry, long and a bit grippy and gets better the longer it is open. It was just as good on day 2. Delicious!

Cheers,
Jon

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Get the 2020 Ontañón LaGarnacha Rioja 4-Pack while you can! This deal ends Sunday 2/16 at midnight Pacific.

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