Baron De Chirel Reserva Rioja 2017

Appearance: clear and bright with a lovely cherry-red colour and hints of violet. Medium-high depth of colour. Lively hue around the rim with little sign of evolution.

Aromas: An enormously expressive wine with great aromatic intensity of small, ripe, black fruits ( blueberries, blackcurrants, cassis, damsons, cherries in liqueur), graphite and mineral notes from the terroir, liquorice, subtle hints of blue flowers (violets), woodland undergrowth (moss and fallen leaves). Reminiscent of autumn when the leaves fall. Hot spices like cloves and black pepper, cocoa and tobacco, all extremely well defined. A slight touch of leather at first, which disappears when left to breathe. The wood is perfectly integrated.

Palate: A powerful, dense, very rich attack. It combines sensations of volume, structure and richness with a silky texture which never ends. Lively tannins, discernible but ripe and which will become more polished with time. Very, very long and persistent, elegant with magnificent acidity which augurs well for great ageing. The fruit is present, and also the blue flowers. It reveals many nuances which have yet to blend together. Great wines show what they are made of right from their youth and promise a life lasting decades.

On the following day: Barón de Chirel 2017 continues to improve for days with the bottle opened. We have been able to see how, on the day after it was opened, fresher aromas of wild red fruit appear: strawberries and raspberries.. The attack is gentler and it has a softer mouth feel. It is a wine which can be left opened, if kept in the right conditions, for 3 or 4 days, during which not only does it not lose its essence, but rather it gains in complexity, in balance, both on the nose and on the palate, and it becomes more rounded.