2004 - CVNE Gran Reserva Imperial, Rioja

(mostly tempranillo, with graciano and mazuelo, aged for 24 months in French and American oak): Bright-rimmed ruby-red. Heady red and dark berry aromas are complicated by notes of mocha, Indian spices and vanillin oak, with a potent floral quality. Stains the palate with sweet cherry and mulberry flavors, picking up anise, cola and vanilla bean accents that build with air. Supple, sweet and expansive on the finish, which leaves smoke and cherry pastry notes behind.

2004 was a classic year; 'everything was right'. This wine was the hand-count favourite of the (very large) room. Surprisingly dark. The first sign of age after wines going from 2018 to 2009. The first hint of leather, of raspberry treacle. Quite closed. Miso and chicken-stock-cube savouriness, saltiness and intensity. Quite blocky and less length. Chunky tannins. Iodine and blood and then red (dried cherry?) intensity peeping through. Very aromatic and fragrant resin on the end. Perhaps I am a Rioja heathen; I did not find this nearly as elegant, ethereal, evocative, as other vintages. It was too hot-climate Syrah-like, too patriarchal, too dominant, fist-on-the-table emphatic, no nuance. But it certainly makes a statement. (TC)