Baigorri Reserva 3 Liters (Jeroboam) 2019

Baigorri Reserva is a Rioja Tempranillo from the winery Jesús Baigorri founded in Samaniego in 2002, below the Sierra de Cantabria. The fruit is drawn from several named plots around the village, where the mountain shelter and the cool influence off the Sierra slow ripening and hold acidity, the conditions that give Rioja Alavesa reds their freshness and length. This bottling is a three-litre Jeroboam, a large format that ages slowly in glass and suits the cellar. The wine completes malolactic fermentation to round the texture, then ages 18 months in French oak barrels, the standard for a Reserva, where slow oxygen exchange settles the tannins and develops the leather, tobacco and sweet spice that mark a wine with bottle age. The colour is deep cherry red moving to garnet. The nose shows plum and dark berry over leather, tobacco and vanilla. The palate is medium to full bodied, the tannins fine and resolved, the oak integrated and the finish long and savoury. The large format favours pouring at a table of several. Serve at 17C and decant. Pairs with roast lamb and game.