diff --git a/reframe/core/schedulers/slurm.py b/reframe/core/schedulers/slurm.py
index 110dd6b50c..321da8b519 100644
--- a/reframe/core/schedulers/slurm.py
+++ b/reframe/core/schedulers/slurm.py
@@ -232,8 +232,8 @@ def _get_reservation_nodes(self, reservation):
         if node_match:
             reservation_nodes = node_match[1]
         else:
-            raise JobError("could not extract the nodes names for "
-                           "reservation '%s'" % valid_reservation)
+            raise JobError("could not extract the node names for "
+                           "reservation '%s'" % reservation)
 
         completed = _run_strict('scontrol -a show -o %s' % reservation_nodes)
         node_descriptions = completed.stdout.splitlines()