Viña Bosconia Reserva 2013

It's quite an achievement to produce a red wine as good as this in the rain-affected 2013 vintage. Tempranillo based with support from 20% Garnacha, Graciano and Mazuelo, this hails from a 58-year-old vineyard called "El Bosque" on clay and limestone soils in Haro and is the most Pinot Noir like of the López de Heredia reds, all raspberry, red cherry and summer pudding flavours and a balanced, textured finish. 2024-32

The 2013 Viña Bosconia Reserva even in a cooler and rainier year, like 2013, has a rounder body and still 13.5% alcohol. They also insisted that "remember that we can use 15% of wine from another vintage, and perhaps we topped this one up with wine from 2015. We want consistency year after year." This matured in barrels for five years and was bottled unfiltered but fined with egg whites. It's expressive, elegant and subtle, clean and complex, with polished tannins and very good acidity (pH 3.3 and 6.7 grams of tartaric acid per liter of wine). 70,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2021. - Luis Gutiérrez.