2016 - Paganos Nieta, Rioja

My favorite wine from the Eguren family is usually the single-vineyard La Nieta, which in the cooler 2016 vintage delivers one of the freshest vintages of the wine with the 2016 La Nieta. This was first produced in 2004, so they've had 12 years of experience to vinify and age these grapes from 1.78 hectares planted in 1975 with a massal selection at 525 meters in altitude on very stony soils. It matured in new French oak barrels for 16 months. This might very well be the finest wine ever produced by the Eguren family, a wine of great finesse, elegance and poise, still insultingly young and tender but with gobsmacking balance and harmony, great freshness and a textured palate with sophisticated tannins. It has the expressive nose of the 2016 vintage, an explosion of flowers and wild berries, some aromatic herbs and plenty of spices. There is still a bit of oak on the finish, but it should be integrated with a little more time in bottle. A monumental Rioja in the making, a red of great finesse. 5,000 bottles were filled in August 2018.

(fermented in large French oak vats and then aged for 18 months in new French oak barrels) Brilliant violet color. A complex, intensely perfumed bouquet evokes fresh, oak-spiced raspberry, boysenberry, cola, incense and smoky minerals, with a sexy floral nuance emerging with air. Powerful, densely packed red berry preserve, spicecake and vanilla flavors show impressive depth and energy and are complicated by an undercurrent of exotic spices. Finishes sweet and extremely long, leaving suave cola and lavender pastille notes behind.