"The Rioja “La Loma” single vineyard bottling from Migel Merino is made from a blend of ninety percent tempranillo and ten percent garnacha. The wine is fermented in stainless steel tanks and raised for fourteen months in French oak barricas. It is a ripe wine, coming in at 14.5 percent octane in the 2023 vintage and offering up a deep and youthfully complex nose of dark berries, coffee bean, cigar wrapper, chalky soil tones, incipient notes of Rioja spice tones and a generous serving of toasty French oak. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, focused and nicely sappy at the core, with good soil signature, fine-grained tannins, lovely balance and a long, complex and very promising finish. Though this is still a young wine, it is already starting to develop the velvetiness on the attack that is the calling card of first class Rioja. It still needs plenty of cellaring time, but it is going to be a fine bottle once it is ready to drink. 2036-2075. "