La Rioja Alta Viña Alberdi Reserva 2009

Ripe cherry and raspberry up front, lifted by candied rose and vanilla, with pipe tobacco and a faint mineral thread adding backbone. Entry is generous and sweet-fruited, the mid-palate filling out with genuine weight before the finish narrows into something more focused and precise, tannins building slowly, tightening without hardening. Alberdi at its most confident: fruit-forward but never loose, structured but never stern.