Gómez Cruzado Cuvée Especial 2020
The most special wine from a century-old ‘boutique winery’
Gómez Cruzado Cuvée Especial 2020 is a spectacular red created exclusively for Vinoselección by the third oldest winery in Haro’s station district: Gómez Cruzado, a firm that enjoys success with each and every one of its wines. A typical Rioja blend matured to perfection by 14 months in French and American oak, it convinces everyone wherever it goes.
Consumption features
Serving temperature
Consumption time
General features
Type of wine
Region
Grape variety
5% Graciano, 15% Garnacha tinta, 80% Tempranillo
Type of barrel
French (90%) and American (10%) oak barrels
Type of bottle
Bordeaux
Barrel aging time
14 months
Capacity (cl)
75
Bottling
Jul-24
Total acidity (g/l)
4.5
Volatile acidity (g/l)
0.48
Sugar
1.6
pH
3.72
Alcohol content (% vol.)
14
General Information
Gómez Cruzado Cuvée Especial 2020 is one of the most special wines from Bodegas Gómez Cruzado. Although it’s a typical – and successful – Rioja blend of Tempranillo, Garnacha and Graciano, this red was specially created for Vinoselección, chosen directly from the barrels by our winemakers, who practically tailored it to our customers’ tastes after a long process of tastings at the winery. The Tempranillo and Graciano grapes came from the vineyards in the Sonsierra area of Rioja, and the Garnacha grapes from one of the parts of the Denominación de Origen that’s best suited to cultivating this variety: Alto de Najerilla, nestled in the Sierra de la Demanda.
Bodegas Gómez Cruzado dates back to1886, when Ángel Gómez de Arteche founded the winery and began bottling wines in Haro in an area close to the railway line where other firms progressively established themselves and began making wines influenced by French ageing practices: that’s how Haro’s station district, which is home to the great Riojas, came about. Three decades later the firm was acquired by the family who gave it its current name, Gómez Cruzado. Now, with a track record of more than 130 years, this winery is run by the Baños family and continues to produce those historic wines that made it great, but also makes a new line of wines that reflect the diversity of Rioja’s terroir.
Gómez Cruzado Cuvée Especial 2020 is perfect with meat stews.
Tasting notes
Cherry-red with a slightly ruby-red rim, good depth of colour.
Nice clean and intense nose, elegant and complex, with prominent aromas of ripe fruit and spicy notes that give way to floral hints, fine wood and balsamic background notes. Very expressive.
Very flavoursome and enveloping on the attack, with an excellent balance and a pleasant, fresh and aromatic mid-palate. Elegant, well-integrated tannins and a long, deeply nuanced and lingering finish.
Creators' opinion
Freshness, respect for the fruit, subtlety, elegance, balance and varietal character define our wines, which always have more finesse than potency.
The winery
Founded in 1886, Gómez Cruzado is a centenary house, a ‘boutique’ winery with an annual production of 350,000 bottles, the smallest in the Barrio de la Estación enclave. In the 2010s, the incorporation of winemaker David González and his partner, viticulture specialist Juan Antonio Leza, brought significant renewal to the range and style of the winery's wines. In 2023, David González left the management of the winery, and winemaker Juan Bautista Sáenz joined the project.
The essence of Gómez Cruzado wines lies in the vineyard, which shapes the traditional landscape, made up of small ‘majuelos’ of old vines. The winery owns 10 hectares of vineyards and works with 100 more hectares of controlled vineyards divided into 193 plots. These are small, old vineyards, sustainably managed and spread across the Sonsierra and Alto Najerilla regions.
The Sonsierra is a northern area of Rioja, characterized by poor, whitish soils and a unique Atlantic-influenced climate within the appellation. Here, Gómez Cruzado's vineyards are south-facing, located in the highest part of the mountain range, reaching up to 750 meters. The Alto Najerilla, in the southern part of Rioja Alta, is an area dominated by an extreme continental climate, with reddish soils. North-facing slopes here host the winery's vineyards, also at nearly 750 meters. This is an ideal location for Garnacha vines planted in bush form almost 100 years ago.
Winemaking and aging are designed to respect the grape's personality and the terroir character of each vineyard as much as possible. With minimal intervention, the aim is for the wines to speak of their origin, the freshness of the fruit, the uniqueness of the soils, and the distinctive character of each variety.
The winery offers two distinctive ranges: Familia Tradición and Selección Terroir, a selection of small-scale Riojas.
The Familia Tradición represents the essence of Gómez Cruzado: honest, versatile wines with balance as their guiding principle. These wines reflect their understanding of Rioja, combining freshness, fruit, and elegance with carefully measured aging. Within this range