1995 Castillo San Lorenzo Rioja Gran Reserva

Community Tasting Notes (1) Avg Score: 89 points

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  9/12/2008 - Holdfast wrote: 89 Points

  What a pleasant surprise! This was a gift from a former client that's been sitting in my wine rack for a couple of years or so. Knowing it was a supermarket wine, I wasn't expecting anything more than a vaguely decent bottle, but in fact it was very complex & layered, and quite deserving of serious attention.
  
  A lovely ochre-tinged purple colour, strong strawberry nose, with notes of leather, cinnamon and something slightly sweet but complex (marzipan? caramel? not sure...). Evolved to a more wet-straw note in the decanter. Good structure - everything is well balanced. I would say that it's the sort of wine that builds to a crescendo through the palate before gradually fading away with a decent lengthy & classy finish. If I was nitpicking, the front palate doesn't have the impact of the rest of the wine, and this (combined with limited further aging potential) knocks it down to a sub-90 score. But really, it's a very good bottle.
  
  If you have any of this 95 Gran Reserve left in your cellar, drink up, because while it will probably last a year or two more, it's not of sufficient quality to age much further and will probably start fading further soon.

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