La Vicalanda Gran Reserva 2016

The bottle of the 2016 La Vicalanda Gran Reserva (and the 2017 Viña Zaco) was so huge and heavy that I initially thought they had sent me a magnum but later discovered that it was a regular bottle, just ridiculously oversized. But what I found inside was much more proportioned, despite being a little ripe at 15% alcohol and showing some generous oak; it spent two years in small barrels, 70% of them new, when I see much more moderate oaking in other wines, even going back to larger foudres in many cases. But it is balanced in its XL way. 5,000 bottles were filled in January 2019.