Okay, okay, we get it. You LOVE Priorat, and the rare sighting around here vanishes quickly. But we know you ADORE Rioja, too.

Feeling the Spanish love on a Monday, let’s go Double Agent, eh? So, we can have cake and eat it too!

We’re going all Imperial too with a 97 Point GRAN RESERVA from the legendary CVNE!

This, by the way, remains the first Spanish wine to ever earn Wine Spectator’s #1 Wine of the Year.

$90-150+ out there. $75 here. HALF OFF. Before you ask if it’s a typo… it ain’t so!!! A plethora of other big scores too, not surprising, as Imperial GR is CVNE’s FLAGSHIP.

Jancis Robinson puts CVNE in “the Rioja aristocracy.” Wine Advocate calls them “one of the great bodegas not only of Rioja, but of the whole of Spain.”

The wine world is OBSESSED with Rioja nowadays. The entire critical conversation right now is about elegance, freshness, and structure over fruit-bomb ripeness. The 2018 Imperial was built EXACTLY for this moment. Wine Advocate called the 2018 growing season “the weather from yesteryear.” In a decade of warm, punchy Riojas, 2018 went the other way. Master of Wine Tim Atkin says, “it will still be going strong in two decades’ time.”

2018 was a smaller crop. All estate fruit above 550 meters, bush-trained vines over 40 years old. CVNE’s best vineyards in Rioja Alta provide the fruit for Imperial Gran Reserva. 85% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano and 5% Mazuelo in 2018, from Villalba and Torremontalbo, very close to the Sierra de Toloño. Grapes are hand-harvested with double selection passes, (TRANSLATION…only the best makes it into the Imperial Gran Reserva).

We love the concentrated dark cherries and dense, inky plums packed onto the nose, cedar threading underneath with a fine hit of wet slate. The palate is tightly wound and benefits from a decant, but will reveal deep black fruit and Morello cherry, crushed earth, dried sage and anise, with a crisp snapping acid line holding the whole structure together. The finish doesn’t wrap up. It just keeps going and going and going. Just like the Energizer bunny! We all looked at each other, and it was a winner.

This really is an insane value, especially knowing that these wines can age for decades and collectors snatch them up quickly.

97 Points - James Suckling “Fresh blackberries, plums, smoked spices, graphite and cocoa powder. So juicy and firm, with fresh, abundant tannins coming from the fruit and spicy oak, but all woven in a fine-grained form, which clearly shows aging potential. Medium- to full-bodied with a very long finish. Try after 2026.”

95+ Points – Wine Advocate “It has similar parameters to the 2017 I tasted next to it, with 14% alcohol, a pH of 3.55 and 6.03 grams of acidity, but it shows fresher. It feels very complete, fresh and vibrant, with more depth and tannin. It’s still quite young and should develop nicely in bottle with that extra kick from the cooler year. Drink 2025-2038.”

95 Points – Decanter “Mouthwatering freshness supported by a firm acid verve and chalky tannins hold the core of prune, blackberry and black cherry with strength and ease. Powdery graphite, dark chocolate shavings, liquorice root, mocha and chocolate mousse build layers of broody complexity. A wine that, still teasingly coiled, has a long time ahead of it.”

95 Points - Tim Atkin MW - “One of the last vintages of Imperial’s Gran Reserve to use 20% American oak, this a focused, age-worthy wine that will still be going strong in two decades’ time. Featuring Tempranillo, 10% Graciano and 5% Mazuelo, it’s a serious, firm, yet very well-balanced red with lots of acidity, muscular tannins, toasty oak and layers of blueberry and black cherry fruit.”