One of the great wines of Rioja – and probably the most reasonable of its stature.
This 2016 is the best ever Imperial Gran Reserva for Suckling, at 98 points:
Polished and structured with firm, very fine tannins. Lots going on here, with layers of black fruit, dried spices, graphite, coconut and cracked pepper. Full-bodied and so intense. Keeps going. Long. The tannins are so fine and so numerous. One of the greatest modern gran reservas.
Best ever for Gilman, too:
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.
Best ever for Decanter, too:
CVNE reinvented their Imperial wines several times. This new version is probably one of my favourites, because it puts together lots of ripe fruit intensity, French oak influence and shorter oak ageing periods with classic balance and Rioja's sumptuosity, built with excellent Tempranillo and Graciano fruit. Powerful, marked by oak ageing but not oxidative, juicy, open. Very serious, I am certain that it will continue to develop positively bet for its positive development over many years in bottle.
Again, NC prices for this sure to be future legend range from $92 to $117, and I think we have the best price anywhere of any store that actually has this.