Rioja is a wine that can be enjoyed in different ways at different stages of its evolution, writes Peter Ranscombe.
ONE wine comes up in conversations with Scottish Field readers more often than perhaps any other – Rioja.
Don’t get me wrong, readers still enjoy asking me questions about many of the other classics too, from Bordeaux and Burgundy, to Barolo and Brunello.
Yet requests for pointers about Rioja come up again and again and again, whether it’s at the Edinburgh International Book Festival or about single vineyard garnacha.
The wine appears to hold a special place in many readers’ hearts and it’s easy to see why.
The attractive combination of dark fruit flavours from tempranillo grapes and red fruit flavours from garnacha make for layered and often complex wines, especially when accompanied by the sweet vanilla flavours from American and French oak barrels.
As we explored at the end of my “12 wines of Christmas” series back in January, Rioja has an established labelling system, which includes “crianza”, “reserva”, and “gran reserva” wines, which have been aged for different lengths of time.
According to those ageing rules, red crianza wines are released when they’re three years old and must have spent at least one year in oak.
Red reserva wines also hit the market in their third year, having spent at least a year in oak and a miniumum of a further six months ageing in their bottles.
Red gran reserva wines must be at least five years old, with a minimum of two years in oak and two years in bottle.
As I’ve said before, that doesn’t mean that a gran reserva is “better” than a reserva or that a reserva is “superior” to a crianza – for me, it’s simply a different style.
What does CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva taste like?
As well as the initial ageing requirement, there’s another element that’s worth exploring too – how long those wines are left in their bottles before finally being opened.
That part of the story was explored over lunch recently at Spanish restaurant Hispania in London, where Rioja maker CVNE launched the 2015 vintage of its Imperial Gran Reserva.
Imperial is a winery within a winery; it’s the posh bit of CVNE’s site in Haro, and produces the company’s flagship Rioja.
In his introduction, CVNE boss Victor Urrutia likened 2015 to the classic Rioja vintages of 2010, 2003, and 2001.
He explained that it had been a hot year – hotter than 2010 and 2001 – and the resulting fruit flavours would be more flattering for the wines while they are young.
For me, the 2015 CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva (£45.88, Lay & Wheeler) was dominated by a mix of wood and cigar smoke, vanilla, and dark fruit on its warm, rich nose.
Sweeter red cherry and raspberry shone through amid the ripe blackberry and blackcurrant on the palate, along with a twist of bitter dark chocolate.
The tannins still felt a bit woody for me, but they were balanced by the sweet vanilla oak and the concentrated fruit flavours.
The wine is just hitting the UK now, with many retailers – including Woodwinters, Berry Bros & Rudd, and Goedhuis & Co – listing stock as being “in bond”, so make sure you ask about the cost of duty too.
What does older Rioja taste like?
To demonstrate how Rioja develops more savoury flavours as it ages in bottle, CVNE served three older vintages at the lunch.
A magnum of 2007 CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva (£99.95, Uncorked) delivered a darker nose full of wet leaf, damp earth, blackcurrant, and smoke.
Urrutia highlighted the high quality fruit from the hot 2007 vintage, but I felt there were maybe some slightly green damp earth-like notes on the palate, in amongst the dry tannins and flavours of roast meat, dark chocolate, and sweeter black cherry on the finish.
While the 2007 was still pretty youthful, a magnum of the 2001 CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva (£265, Vintage Port & Wine) – from what Urrutia hailed as “probably one of the best vintages in 30 years” – was showing more development on the palate, with intense mushroom broth joining the roast meat and blackcurrant flavours.
Its taste profile was still driven by the vanilla and dark chocolate flavours though, while its acidity demonstrated that the wine still has many years of ageing left ahead of it if desired.
In contrast, a very special bottle of the 1976 CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva was in its full tertiary phase, showing mushroom, damp earth, cigar smoke, and cedar on the nose.
On the palate, there was still a fresh twist of redcurrant before the spun sugar, dark chocolate, roast meat, and mushroom took over.
What surprised me most was that it was still so lively; it just kept giving with every sip.
To fill in the gaps, I went back to my 2018 tasting of Rioja from the 1990s and 1980s with rival Ramon Bilbao – another excellent reminder of just how well top-notch Rioja can age.
Read more of Peter’s spirits, wine, and beer reviews on his blog, The Grape & The Grain
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