1952 Bodegas Berberana - Rioja Cosecha Especial - 2 Flasker (0,75 l)

2 bottles of Berberana special Harvest 1952, excellent condition, perfect capsules and corks, labels good

If you want to understand Rioja, the Berberana is a good way, these three bottles are a clear example of a job well done.
For a cellar of great Spanish wines

Winemaking: Initial stay of between 18 and 24 months in large old wood vats from the founding period in which it undergoes fermentation and stabilisation before being racked. It is then aged in used 225-litre American oak barrels for 8 to 9 years. Bottled directly from the barrel in the mid-1960s. It remains for a minimum of 4 years in the cellar's cellars before being marketed.

Tasting notes: Beautiful very light brownish ruby colour, medium-low depth, with a small amount of precipitates at the base of the bottle, very fine, which breaks up the absolute limpidity of the wine. Clear, bright, luminous, with taupe reflections. The rim is ample, blending in with the meniscus, and the tears are thick and permanent.

You have to be patient and give it time. On opening it is reduced and apparently tired. Initially a ferruginous sensation dominates, bringing a curious mix of old rigging, tar, caulking, dirty toast, charcoal, with a background of caramelised sugar and a disconcerting range reminiscent of Marmite paste, yeast extract or roasted malt. That's what we feared at first. Fortunately, the wine comes together piece by piece. The toastiness is softened. Creamy notes, toffee, vanilla... It overflows with maturity with an elegant note of cocoa butter accompanied by fig compote that gives way to a greater presence of very ripe fruit, very Grenache, with a trace of cocoa powder. Increasingly harmonious, elegant, round, giving a classic, very traditional Berberana profile. It ends up being a shady walk, full of earthy, leafy, humus and withered grapes of great quality. Similar in almost every way to the 1964 Cosecha Especial but with a touch of elegance and the winery's old hallmark.

On the palate we find a spicy and fresh wine, with intense acidity, very young, fine, thin, still with a lot of punch. It has a nervous, unbridled touch, which does not make it renounce balance (mature, rested, with a layer of fine wood and a hint of sweetness of a great wine). As elegant as it is lively. One of the best tasted wines from this winery. Together with the C.E. 64 it forms an unrepeatable duo. It is impossible to explain that a wine like this, having exceeded 60 years of age, maintains this integrity. I suspect that no current Rioja wine will be half as young in 2070 as this wine is today. Berberana had one of the formulas for eternal youth. What did they do with it?


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