CVNE Imperial Reserva 1994

S

Saina Nieminen

Saina Nieminen
Compaia Vincola del Norte de Espaa Imperial Reserva 1994 13% abv; 64,90 (ouch!)

I did a brief search online for notes on this wine. They all either damned it with faint praise or simply damned it. I am becoming quite convinced that I like bad wine since I very much enjoyed my glass!

The wine does a sine-curve-like trajectory between a sweet, ripe strawberried scent and a stern, lingonberry-like bright red aroma. The oak is just a madeleine; an epsilon, a small positive infinitesimal quantity. It is loamy and vegetal and has a touch of funk, too, which is nice.

It is quite full bodied with sweet fruit, quite warm year in character with lower acidity than I would have hoped from an old style Rioja. But it isn't flabby and does retain some brightness. Where I most miss the acidity is on the finish where it just doesn't carry the fruit so it ends up lacking a bit in the brightness that some sniffs promised. So not the best Rioja that I've had, but far better than what I read. To my tastes, this is in a very nice spot now (it had been open two hours when I tried it) and I imagine it will keep well.

A Contino '94 was also opened, but it was sadly corked. It will be returned to Alko. If I am present when the replacement bottle is opened, I shall certainly post on that, too.

I have only heard bad things about '94-> CVNE. What has been going on there?
 
Otto, I think that 1995 was a more classic year with better structure. I have no issues with 1994 other than I drank everything I had from that vintage while sitting on my 95s. As to the acidity in the Imperial, I've never found the Cune Imperial to be among the ultra high acid traditional bottlings such as RLdH produces.

Also, Cune has been transitioning to plumper wines (some plumper than others).
 
FlJim, a wonderfully ambiguous reply.

Joe, I have liked very much the high acidity of the few '96s I have tasted - was the CVNE nice then also?
 
Generally speaking, I think '96 was less fruity than '94, which allows the acidity to take the driver's seat.

I still buy Cune wines. I had a bottle last week. They have shifted priorities, IMO, but there is quality to be found. I guess my biggest issue is that the prices of the basic crianza and reserva have gone up and there are better wines to be found for less.

Regards,
Joe
 
Considering that more than 30,000 cases are produced yearly, this is a nice enough wine. But the price it costs in Finland seems rather absurd, Otto - even if it had been the much scarcer Gran Reserva. This wine is not often found, of course, because it's an older vintage, but in Spain it retails for 22-25. And both Spain and Finland are in the EU, so there are no customs duties, and in Finand you have no three-tier distribution system as in the US!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top