Gómez Cruzado Honorable 2014 (x3)

They didn't make this wine in 2013, so I tasted the following two vintages. The 2014 Honorable is from a challenging year with good freshness and less homogeneous wines than 2015. This is their oldest brand from the winery that has been rescued, and it's a wine with a little more structure than the Reserva. It has the chalky soils that provide the chalky tannins and has the complexity of a blend of Tempranillo with other grapes, as there's maybe 10% of a combination of Viura, Malvasía, Garnacha, Mazuelo and Graciano. It has round and sweet tannins that were not easy to achieve in 2014 and the ashy, spicy and balsamic notes that made Rioja famous. 18,000 bottles produced.

Honorable is the revived Gómez Cruzado’s most traditional Rioja. A classic blend of varieties from the estate’s oldest vineyards gives a dense, succulent wine, that’s bold with spice and a lift of orange zest. - Sarah Jane Evans MW