2011 - CVNE Gran Reserva Imperial, Rioja

Vivid ruby-red. Highly perfumed aromas of red fruit liqueur, candied flowers, vanilla and incense; spicecake, vanilla and smoky mineral flourishes emerge with air. Palate-staining raspberry, cherry-vanilla and rose pastille flavors display excellent depth and energy, and a spine of juicy acidity provides added lift and back-end cut. Melds richness and vivacity with a sure hand and finishes with lingering sweetness, fine-grained tannins and a touch of smokiness.

I'm always looking forward to tasting CVNE's Gran Reserva bottlings, especially the 2011 Imperial Gran Reserva, as the year was highly praised, and I was very curious to see how it behaved. It's a classical blend of Tempranillo with 10% Graciano and 5% Mazuelo that matured in barrel for two years. It has good depth and complexity in the nose, nicely layered, very balsamic and tertiary. It feels elegant and harmonious. The palate is surprisingly fresh and vibrant, with finesse, freshness, fine and mostly resolved tannins and a fine thread of acidity that holds and lifts up the finish. 50,000 bottles were filled in June 2014.

2011 was, according to Victor Urrutia, a 'massive year. Very hot. There was a certain opulence to wine.' Sweet notes on the nose. Cherry blossom. Liquorice. And then quite abrupt on the palate. Plump and yet abrasive, and the tannins are very drying – it actually feels as if it needs way more time than the three much younger vintages we'd tasted before it. A puzzling vintage that, even after 14 years in bottle still seems to be having an identity crisis. Kite-running violets fly high and sweet, defying the sweeter dank of bosky decay and undergrowth. Black gravelly stones sit tense and tight and bass low, growling at the iron-barred fruit pressed back back back from the light. Perhaps this will come around. But not this decade. (TC)