CVNE 'Imperial' Rioja Gran Reserva 2016

95+ Points John Gilman

The 2016 Imperial Gran Reserva from Cuné is a truly superb young wine. The bouquet is deep, precise and already beautifully complex, delivering scents of black cherries, black raspberries, cigar wrapper, cloves, a refined base of soil, sandalwood and a touch of toasted coconut in the upper register. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, elegant and rock solid at the core, with fine soil undertow, great balance and grip, ripe, buried tannins and a long, complex and utterly classical finish. This wine will eventually be liquid velvet in the mouth, but it will need some cellaring time before it gets to that stage of its evolution. Great juice.