Club Privado Rioja, Limited Curvee from Bodegas Baron de Ley

Whilst browsing the wine racks at Waitrose I came across this Rioja, just right for my Chorizo and Olive Ragu. In the basket it went before tipping most of it into the Ragu back at home. Whilst cooking I poured myself a glass. Wow. Club Privado Rioja, Limited Curvee from Bodegas Baron de Ley has serious raspberry, banana and strawberry fruitiness components, really yummy rich fruity flavours hit very quickly on first tasting before blossoming into a smoothly antiqued oaken mouthful. Very good. The blurb on the back of the bottle reads ( bemusingly enough in BLOCK CAPITALS ) :  "...A FINE EXAMPLE OF MODERN FRUIT DRIVEN RIOJA WITH LOVELY BALANCE AND DEPTH." Er, yeah. Except I found the experience to be essentially oak driven with such a long finish. The modern fruit burst is very nice, strong but fleeting and the oaky notes develop well, however the transition is not particularly smooth. It's certainly a wine of two distinct and pleasurable parts. Fruit then Oak. Very very good fruit then very smooth oak. Understandably it won Silver at the 2009 Decanter Awards. Good bottle.