Description
CVNE, Rioja Reserva
One thing we’ve always sought to do at SommSelect is find mature, well-stored collectibles for people who don’t typically spend lavishly on long-aged, blue-chip wines. Aside from Bordeaux, the best place to find such a wine is undoubtedly Rioja. And when you take the full measure of everything you get from a venerable Rioja bodega like CVNE—history, consistency, value-for-dollar—it’s Rioja in a landslide.
Along with the likes of López de Heredia and La Rioja Alta, you can’t talk about great Rioja without including CVNE, or “Cune,” as we’ve come to know it. Established 140+ years ago in Rioja, Cune’s earliest wines were modeled after the First Growths of Bordeaux, and, aside from the raw materials—Rioja’s Tempranillo rather than Bordeaux’s Cabernet—the comparisons are still entirely apt. Neal Martin, writing for The Wine Advocate, called Cune “a bastion of traditional Rioja,” and when Wine Spectator magazine announced its Top 10 Wines of 2013, Cune’s 2004 Imperial Gran Reserva took first place—a first for a Spanish red. Today we’re blessed to feature a sound and utterly harmonious 1985 Reserva at an outlandishly fair price. As New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams might say, “Only in Rioja, kids. Only in Rioja.”
There’s a reason people age wines, and it’s not always ROI or ego-driven. The transformation of a great red wine from inky and fruit-saturated in its youth to savory and spicy and a lot of other sensations that almost defy description…well, that’s why. This ’85 is as much an intellectual experience as a sensory one. You can still detect some of the dark cherry fruit of the wine’s long-lost youth, but now it comes wrapped in a tobacco leaf and is sprinkled with all manner of warm spices, dried flowers, and dusty earth. At $125, who doesn’t take that deal?
As I said, this is indeed a blue-chip house, one of Rioja’s benchmark properties. It was founded in 1879, when brothers Eusebio and Raimundo Real de Asúa settled in Haro, roughly 40 miles northwest of the city of Rioja, and established Compañía Vinícola del Norte de España (CVNE). Situated near a railway station, which meant easy transport of wine barrels in those days, they also unwittingly initiated a string of projects that would help define the entire wine-producing region of Rioja.
First, they planted estate vineyards, primarily with Tempranillo grapes, then introduced fermentation and blending in large wooden tanks and concrete vats, with extended barrel-aging prior to release. They were Spain’s first winery to bottle and export wines, which stylistically, were modeled after French “Claret” and targeted abroad to the Brits.
Long-held estate vineyards in Rioja Alta are home to old-vine Tempranillo that is planted in iron-rich clay and limestone soils. From these vineyards, each harvest is gently shuttled to Cune’s winery in Haro. With roughly 1,360 acres throughout Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa, vines are planted primarily at higher altitudes where the growing season is subject to some Atlantic-borne currents, helping temper major heat spells.
Tempranillo, Graciano, and Mazuelo grapes are hand-picked, de-stemmed, and fermented in stainless steel, before maturation over 18 months in a combination of French and American oak barrels. The wine is then bottled and rests a full two years prior to release to the market, per Reserva regulations. Our small parcel was stored in a private Spanish cellar for the majority of its life. It arrived in America just two months ago.
Our experience opening and enjoying this bottle was a sensory overload. It is ready to be enjoyed now, and before you do so, stand the bottle upright a few days before uncorking (ideally with an Ah-So or Durand opener at the ready). Gently decant it for sediment right before serving in Bordeaux stems at 60 degrees, and get ready for a wild aromatic ride, marked by aromas and flavors of dried cherry, plum skin, mushroom stock, coconut husk, sandalwood, redcurrant, bay leaf, graphite, and slight hints of vanilla. It has matured, gracefully, into a silky, savory, medium-bodied stunner of considerable length: You might enjoy sipping it slowly with a selection of hard cheeses, but, by all means, cook for it if the mood strikes you. The last time we offered an aged red from Cune we found a rack of lamb recipe worthy of such an occasion, so here it is again! Enjoy!
