Baron de Ley Gran Reserva Rioja, 2014 – beautifully aged Spanish red wine

Founded in 1985 in Rioja, Spain, Baron de Ley is a fantastic winery known for its beautiful terroir which delivers premium, quality wines. Heritage is at the heart of Baron de Ley and, although the winery is constantly exploring the full potential of quality wines in Rioja, it always remains true to its roots. With over 600 hectares of vines in their vineyard, it’s incredible to think that Baron de Ley uses manual harvesting for its wines. Through hand-harvesting and hand-sorting, the vineyard is able to deliver the highest quality of wines in such a well-known winemaking region.

This week, I’m thrilled to be sharing the Baron de Ley Gran Reserva Rioja (2014), an aged wine made using 100% tempranillo grapes. I received it as a gift over Christmas, but only just cracked it open this month as I knew it would warrant a special occasion. I’m certainly glad I waited as this wine delivered everything I’d hoped for…and more.

Beginning with its appearance, the Baron de Ley Gran Reserva Rioja had was a beautiful ruby red in colour. On the nose, it with giving aromas of red fruits (think red plum, red cherry and redcurrants), as well as a lovely spicy black pepper before moving to a smooth vanilla-ness with a smokey undertone. As this is an aged wine, I was wondering if I’d get any dried fruit aromas. After a bit of back and forth, I found elements of prunes as well as a slight leatheriness too.

Onto the palate, this is a fairly dry wine with medium acidity. At 13.5% ABV, it’s giving medium alcohol which sat well with the medium body of the wine as well. As for the flavours, they matched almost perfectly with the aromas – red fruit (red plum, red cherry), black pepper, vanilla and prune. But, I had the added flavour of caramel – delicious! The finish was long with the sweet red fruits and caramel balancing perfectly with the smokey/spice black pepper. Overall, this is an absolutely outstanding wine.

To discover more beautiful wines, take a look through my other reviews as part of the Now Pouring series. I’ve got everything from dry rosés to jammy reds right here. If delicious red wines are a bit of you, check out three of my top suggestions below.