2016 Cubillo 94WA
La Rioja, Spain

Wine Advocate 94 pts
The 2016 Viña Cubillo Tinto Crianza was surprising, spectacular, elegant, clean and fresh like few vintages before. It was a superb year, with quality, quantity and freshness. It's quite the opposite from the previous 2015, which was a much warmer and riper year. The 2016s have moderate alcohol and especially the perception of less ripeness (even though the alcohol is very similar). It feels very young, still quite primary. Mercedes explained, "Cubillas, a 24-hectare plot, is a vineyard that could produce Gran Reserva wines. It's a very good vineyard, but we would miss the Crianza in our range". In fact, the comment was that this vintage is even a challenge for the Viña Tondonia red "because of its price." It is indeed a bargain. "But it doesn't have the finesse of Tondonia," concluded María José. Anyway, it's super tasty. 92,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in November 2022.
Luis Guttierez - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

While not rated yet, if you recall 2016 is a banner vintage in most of the main Southern European wine regions! In Spain and Italy (Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello) they were particularly and universally excellent, Bordeaux and Chateauneuf du Pape as well! In each of those regions there are characteristic in the wines that align with the style of wine from Rioja: fuller bodied, structured, tannic, fresh (in 2016), long living wines.
When impeccably balanced from a perfect vintage like 2016, they make for epic wines that can be considered candidates for the best bottling ever of a certain wine.

This is a no brainer on 6, but a case is a much better idea so you can get into some of them now. I mean, for $25, this wine is still underpriced. $40-50 to me is the real value here, if not more when you compare to other wines from the region that carry higher price tags. I am a case automatic here personally on this one!

Past scores:
2014: 92WA
2013: 92+WA
2011: 92WA
2010: 93WA
2009: 92WA

Tempranillo 65%, Garnacho 25%, Graciano & Mazuelo 10% 

This is one of the best values going in the wine world. If you want to think about your wine, you will appreciate this. If you don't want to think about your wine, you will savor its pure deliciousness. It shows the youngest of their red wines with a little more fruit and drinks, so, so well. A superb value, in more expensive restaurants I tend to look for a wine like this that delivers well over its price.

From the vineyard called Viña Cubillas, which was purchased by the founder in the late 1800s. Vina Cubillas has an altitude of 410 m, and the vines have an average age of 40 years. The soil is a mixture of clay and limestone. Viña Cubillas covers 24 ha, of which 16 ha are under Tempranillo, 4 ha Garnacha, 2 ha Mazuelo and 2 ha Graciano. With parcels called "La Encina" and "La Monja", Viña Cubillas is a vineyard that produces exceptional wines sold as Crianza, but could easily qualify for Gran Reserva level wines due to the exceptional combination of soil, aspect, and vines.