2016 Cune Gran Reserva Rioja 750 ml

CVNE is as close to a sure thing as you get in Rioja.

Decanter once said as much, calling the esteemed winery “reliable, year in and year out” and among Rioja’s “best producers.” Jancis Robinson included it in what she called “The Rioja Aristocracy,” and Spanish-wine expert Luis Gutierrez of Wine Advocate declared them “one of the great bodegas not only of Rioja, but of the whole of Spain.”

For the MICHELIN Club, Director of Service Sean McGinness of San Diego’s three-star Addison chose this wine to accompany Chef William Bradley’s A5 Wagyu beef with miso eggplant, matsutake broth, and black garlic. The decadent and savory dish calls for a wine with firm tannins, bold flavor, and firm acidity—something this bottle boasts in perfect balance.

The Compañia Vinícola del Norte de España—also known as “CVNE,” or the more pronounceable “CUNE”—is a pioneer in Rioja. They produced the first Spanish wine to earn the #1 spot on Wine Spectator’s Top 100, and they were the nation’s first winery to employ gravity-flow technology in the cellar.

CVNE’s 2016 Gran Reserva comes primarily from south- and east-facing vineyards in Torremontalbo, where the vines average 45 years of age. That’s even older than the vineyards that go into the winery’s Imperial Gran Reserva and Viña Real Gran Reserva!

In Rioja Alta’s cracked and rugged soils, vines have to earn everything they get. The tiny Tempranillo grapes comprising the core of this CUNE Gran Reserva were harvested by hand from low-yielding, bush-like plants. The wine spent two years in French and American oak, followed by another six years in bottle, resulting in a complex, elegant, and deeply intense Rioja.