Marques De Caceres Gran Reserva Rioja 1995

Marques De Caceres Gran Reserva 1995
Rioja, Spain
40,000 won, Kyobo Building Jamsil. Can't remember the name of the shop! It is in the back corner on the 1st floor. It's a nice wine shop with helpful staff and the next time I go I will take some pictures and find out the name.

So, the consolation for not picking up another Viejo crianza and a completely different wine. Same grapes, same region, different proposition altogether. Picked this up for 40,000 and the sales technique used was simple, I asked how much the Reserva was and was told 40,000 she pointed to the Gran Reserva and explained it was the same price and I was heading to the counter.

This is a deep, intense purple wine with an attractive ruby rim. On the nose it is only medium intense, giving up none of the power of the wine apparent on tasting. This is, as you might expect, a wine that is showing off its 12 years of age. The first thing to come through on the nose is a rich leather backed up with a lovely dried fruit scent. Prunes, figs and some spiciness gave up an almost Christmas pudding like smell. This is all backed up with still solid primary fruit, dark black cherries and blackberry and the light vanilla notes from the minimum 2 years in oak for a Gran Reserva Rioja.

This is a serious wine, intense, full bodied and complex. It still has fairly pronounced tannins and acidity and is still retaining its primary fruit, this could probably age for some time to come. The leather follows through with far more pronounced vanilla and dark fruit of cherry and blackberry a hint of strawberry and then dried fig and chocolate on the finish. This is a good complex wine with really good length that might benefit from more aging. Certainly it benefited from being paired with some red meat, this is not a glugger like the Viejo Crianza.

Good value at 40,000? Certainly you are getting a wine to think about and it really is a face full of flavour. On a cold, dark night with the smell of roasting meat, this was a real treat.