Hacienda López de Haro, Classica, Gran Reserva, Rioja, Spain 2004

There is no pleasure in wine quite like a Rioja Gran Reserva: the sense of ease and comfort as you sniff the languid, articulate, open-pored wine, and still more as you bathe your tongue in its gentle, mellow, luxurious fruits, is peerless. Here’s a fine example. It’s still dark, despite the seventeen years since its grapes ripened, and it smells of plush, rich, almost smoky fruits, warm timber, dried mushrooms, tobacco leaf and cedar boxes. The palate is rich, soft, open and easy, yet packed with fruited intensity, too. The minority Graciano component brings balancing acidity and there are deft tannins, too, though you might not notice them, so deeply are they buried in the time-honoured fruits.

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