The 2005 vintage of Gran Reserva 890 Selección Especial was chosen by the 2022 edition of the Peñín Guide as the best wine in the DOCa Rioja after earning the highest rating, 99 points. The publication, a world reference for Spanish wines, only awarded this score to  six wines out of the more than 9,300 tasted for this edition.

The Peñín Guide publishing team, led by Carlos González, considers that the strength of 2005 Gran Reserva 890 Selección Especial lies in “excellent grapes and meticulous winemaking that carefully pamper the effect of oxygen on the wine”. This Rioja Gran Reserva is an “extremely elegant wine, with fine tannins and very rich in tertiary aromas” which “invites reflection and dialogue and whose strength does not lie in the vineyard concept but in the magical union of grapes and the service they provide for aging.”

2005 Gran Reserva 890 Selección Especial is made with the choicest Tempranillo, Graciano and Mazuelo grapes from vineyards owned by the winery La Rioja Alta, S.A. in the towns of Briñas, Labastida, Villalba and Rodezno. The wine was aged for six years in American oak barrels and manually racked ten times. 

This great wine, made only in the most extraordinary vintages, has already won another great international recognition as fourth best wine in the world in 2018 by Wine Spectator magazine.

The recently announced 2022 edition of the Peñín Guide also corroborates the excellent winemaking moment of the winery Group led by Guillermo de Aranzabal. It is not by chance that all twelve wines tasted from its four wineries (La Rioja Alta, S.A., Torre de Oña, Áster and Lagar de Cervera) scored over 90 points, with the 2011 Gran Reserva 904 earning 97 points, Viña Arana Gran Reserva 96, Viña Ardanza 2015, Finca Martelo 2015 and Áster Finca El Otero 2016 scoring 94 points.

In addition, 2011 Gran Reserva 904 won the Verema award for best Spanish red wine of 2021, collected by the winemaker, Julio Saenz, at an event held in Valencia.