Baigorri Reserva 2018

Bodegas Baigorri, based in Samaniego, is an essential stopover for lovers of wine and architecture who are visiting the vicinity of the Sierra de Cantabria mountains. It's simple enough to observe the glass silhouette which has made the winery building so famous; this impressive crystal cube, sheltered by a mountainous backdrop, is naturally integrated into the landscape. Inside the winery, gravity is the great protagonist. The building has been conceived so that the entire circuit journeyed by the grapes and the wine runs without the use of mechanised pumps, thus facilitating the purity of the fruit aromas. New French oak barrels, the other key factor at Baigorri, will then take care of bestowing overall complexity and elegance. The Baigorri Reserva fuses, as few wines manage to do, the fine merits of these two elements: the fruit and the oak. After a rigorous and selective manual harvest of the old Tempranillo vines, the grapes are vinified with maximum sensitivity in an attempt to preserve the most natural aroma possible. Macerations are long and take place in oak vats; while ageing occurs, of course, in new French oak. The wine is a true reflection of the Baigorri style, intense and elegant in equal measures. A Picota cherry colour and dense, with a nose revealing intense toasty notes and very ripe black fruit. A fresh entry and a passage marked by fruit that now seems to have a redder hue, thanks to the precise acidity. The tannins are present but very nicely rounded off thanks to a soothing lactic sensation. Laurel, pepper, blue flowers and hints of liquorice emerge, derived from the ageing. In its slow farewell, it comes over as dry and mineral, garnished with juicy fruit and the shrubland aromas of mattoral.