Remírez de Ganuza Gran Reserva 2012

Dark, heady and brooding nose of black tea, old rose, cooked plum and spice. Powerful on the palate with treacle, molasses, brown sugar, and allspice. Still quite youthful, needing more time to slumber in the bottle to allow the fruit to overtake the tannin. Very persistent finish.

The Gran Reserva bottling always used to have some American oak (12% in this case), but switched to all French wood after 2011. Made with Tempranillo, 10% Graciano and 4% of Viura and Malvasía skins, sourced from the coolest sites so that the wine retains acidity, this is still a plush, ripe, late-picked style with chocolatey oak, firmish tannins and layers of fig, damson and mulberry fruit. 2021-25