Bodegas Hermanos Peciña Señorío de P. Peciña Rioja Reserva 2017 750ml

I love the textbook nose of the 2016 Señorío de P. Peciña Reserva, as it is earthy, spicy and developed, with notes of leather and vanilla and a touch of smoke and brick dust. It has ripe fruit without excess and a medium-bodied palate with great balance and freshness. It has pungent flavors and is powerful and ripe without excess at 14.5% alcohol and with polished chalky tannins. This matured in American oak barrels for 36 months, during which time it was racked every six months. 42,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in September 2020.

The 2017 Señorío de P. Peciña Reserva was cropped from a very challenging year in Rioja, and the wine might have a more developed nose and a polished and lighter palate. It does have ripeness—the wine reached 14.64% alcohol with a pH of 3.56 and 6.1 grams of acidity—because the end of the season was warm, and yields were low because of the earlier frost. It matured in used American oak barrels for three years, during which time it was racked every six months. This has an ultra-traditional profile. 36,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in September 2021.

Made with the same techniques as the Crianza, the 2017 Senorio De P. Pecina Reserva is kept three years in used American oak barrel and three in bottle, the main difference being the vineyard sourcing though the plots is not always the same for the Reserva (nor is the wine made every year). This vintage suffered a late frost where many producers lost half their production, and the resulting yields were low. But where it worked, it worked. This delivers a creamy texture of densely concentrated red fruit that’s full-bodied and showing its oak. Age it a long time, 25-30 years.