Eladio Piñeiro La Coartada Alentejo Grande Escolha 2009

John Gilman (View From the Cellar): "The La Coartada Grand Reserve bottling from Eladio Piñeiro is composed of eighty percent Aragonez (Tempranillo), fifteen percent Alicante Bouschet and five percent Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine spends fully four years in oak casks before being racked to stainless steel tanks, where it spends an additional three years prior to bottling. Seven years elevage! The 2009 vintage comes in a robust 14.5 percent alcohol and offers up a ripe and very enticing bouquet of black cherries, a bit of cassis, gentle spice tones, a bit of meatiness, chocolate and a lovely foundation of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and quite velvety on the attack at ten years of age, with a fine core of fruit, good focus and complexity and a bit of backend heat poking out on the long finish. This is a really good wine, but to my palate, it needs to be a half point lower in octane to realize its full potential... there is admirable depth and complexity here! 2018-2030. (Nov/Dec 2018)"

80% Aragonez (Tempranillo), 15% Alicante Bouschet, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon from vineyardswith an average age of 25 years, farmed biodynamically. Aged 48 months in new barrels with further maturing in stainless steel casks for 36 months.