Vivid ruby. Displays expansive, smoke-tinged aromas of dried cherry, blackcurrant and licorice, with vanilla and floral nuance emerging with aeration. Smooth and open-knit, showing very good depth to its gently sweet dark fruit, floral pastille and spicecake flavors. Finishes long and spicy, with gentle tannins adding shape to lingering dark berry and mocha notes. (raised in one- and two-year old French oak barriques)

The 2012 Reserva Santa Rosa is a Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend with around 15% of Merlot and Shiraz from 28-year-old vineyards in their estate El Chaconero in Villena, which matured in new French barriques for some 17 months. The Cabernet Sauvignon has to be one of the oldest in Spain, the plants are nicely balanced and the wine shows it. This Bordeaux blend has a clear Mediterranean accent with its aromas of rockrose and thyme, a little earthy with a core of red and black fruit and some balsamic aromas of cigar ash and incense. The palate shows nicely balanced, with integrated oak (still al little too present for me) and a very tasty finish. This is a very balanced vintage of Santa Rosa. I also tasted an incredibly tasty 2001, all full of cold bonfire, singed leather, raw meat, pencil shavings and tea leaf aromas, and also a velvety and complex 1996 with great complexity, freshness and tantalizing aromas of decayed flowers. These wines age incredibly. Some 30,000 bottles were produced in 2012.