TN: 2005 Bodegas AAlto Ribera del Duero AAlto - I had considered this Ribera del Duero for my recent Spanish wine lunch but opted for older and presumably more mature wines. I decided to try a bottle as I hadn’t tasted it since the mid 2000s. It turned out to be truly excellent, showing great depth of colour, starting with the odours you get when you open a cedar lined moth chest (if anyone still uses those today), and followed by some pipe tobacco notes (from the humidor, not burning in a pipe). In the mouth it was smooth and had excellent length, showing a lengthy finish. Reminded me of a very good, big Zin or petite sirah except that the tannins weren’t as hard as the latter and the fruit not as sweet as the former. A really excellent wine sadly now selling around $130 a bottle locally for more current vintages. The good thing about this wine is apparent from the review; that bad part is that I’d only bought 6!
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