Montecillo Rioja Reserva 2013, is number 25 on Wine Spectator’s prestigiousTop 100 list, making it the second best wine in the world from the D.O.Ca. Rioja
Wine Spectator has published its list of the world’s top 100 wines, as it has done every year since 1988, selecting the very best of the more than 11,000 wines that it has reviewed through the year.
Bodegas Montecillo continues on its journey to excellence. The third oldest winery in the D.O.Ca. Rioja has had the best possible finish to the year, as the editors of the prestigious North American magazine, Wine Spectator, have selected Montecillo Rioja Reserva 2013 to feature on its list of the top 100 wines of 2020, placing it in 25th position with a score of 92 points.
Based on quality, price and availability, this annual list rewards the world’s most successful wineries, regions and vintages. This year, more than 11,000 wines (of which 600 were Spanish) were tasted. Of these, only 9 Spanish wines were placed on the famous list, of which three were from the Rioja category, making Montecillo Reserva 2013 one of Spain’s very best wines.
Montecillo Rioja Reserva 2013
“Montecillo Rioja Reserva 2013 comes from a vintage that was complicated across the whole of Spain, particularly Rioja. Low temperatures in summer, and excessive rainfall at the start of September, complicated the end of the growth cycle, making selecting the grapes that went into Montecillo Reserva of vital importance to ensure its position among the world’s best 25 wines” states Mercedes García Rupérez, Bodegas Montecillo’s winemaker.
Despite the difficulties that the year presented, Bodegas Montecillo managed to make an extraordinary Reserva combining intensity and aromatic finesse with an opulent mouth feel. Our winemaker selected three different grape varieties to craft a classic Rioja coupage composed of 90% Tempranillo, 7% Mazuelo and 3% Garnacha. Each variety was harvested and made seperately, one of Bodegas Montecillo’s defining characteristics. It was aged in handcrafted French and American oak barrels (70%-30% respectively) for 25 months, and once bottled, it evolved slowly in bottle for a further 20 months. This resulted in «a plump red wine that offers mulled cherry and plum flavors, with notes of cinnamon, cedar, sandalwood. Light tannins are well integrated, while orange peel acidity keeps this fresh and focused. Harmonious and generous,” is how it is described by the Wine Spectator tasting panel itself.
International recognition
This year, Bodegas Montecillo has been rewarded with several prizes from prestigious publications, confirming its commitment to achieving excellence, quality and singularity year after year. This also consolidates the winery’s credentials as a producer of premium wines and strengthens the brand’s prestige and reputation as an expert producer and creator of exceptional, long-ageing wines.
In a similar vein, a few months ago, Wine Enthusiast, one of the world’s most influential magazines, and one of the most important in the USA, placed Montecillo Crianza 2016 in first place in its annual ranking of “Top 100 Best Buys”, awarding it 90 points and also recommending it to its readers as a smart purchase. These great results are in addition to the high scores given by important publications such as Decanter, which gave 91 points to Montecillo Crianza 2016, featuring it on the cover of the March 2020 edition, as offering “The Best of Spain”. The same wine was given a Gold Medal by the international Mundus Vini competition.
Montecillo Rioja Reserva 2013 is available:
