CUNE 2015 Gran Reserva 2-bottle Gift Set with Decanter

The oerfect gift for lovers of Spanish wines in general and Rioja in particular. The gift box contains two bottles of CUNE Gran Reserva and a beautiful decanter that balances nicely between form and function. Etched with the famous CUNE logo, it is fully agnostic when it comes to what wine it aerates, or who produced it. ;-) 

The Wine

Gran Reserva wines from Rioja must be aged for a minimum of five years, at leaset two of which must be in oak casks and at least three years in bottle before release. These two bottles of 2015 Gran Reservas come from an exceptional producer and and a vintage that was graded "Excellent" - no surprise there, as Gran Reservas are only produced when conditions are good.

The 2015 vintage saw Spain hit with record heat and drought that compromised most of their harvests in some way, though Rioja was the one exception. Not that it was unaffected by the conditions, but they benefited from a late spring rain that carried the vines through the heat of summer. The Rioja wines from 2015 tend to be very concentrated and higher in alcohol, approaching 15%. The 2015 wines from Northern Rioja enjoyed better critical acclaim, as they enjoyed some mitigating temperatures during the peak of summer.

This wine is a blend of 85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano and 5% Mazuelo. The wine spent 24 months in a combination of French and American oak barrels.  This wine is enjoyable now and will continue to integrate and improve over the next 5-7 years, remain at its peak for several years more, and then sometime around 2035 begin a long and slow decline that may last another decade or more. 

The Winery

C.V.N.E, (Compañía Vinícola del Norte de España, or the Wine Company of Northern Spain) is a family winery that was founded in 1879 in the town of Haro in Rioja, Spain. The company took its name from the initials CVNE, but a fortuitous misspelling between the U and the V created the iconic Cune brand, one that is much easier to pronounce as an acronym than CVNE would ever have been!