Wine of the week: an impeccably balanced Ribera

2016 Áster, Finca El Otero, Ribera del Duero, Spain

£38.50, reduced to £35.00 by the case, Bon Coeur Fine Wines 01325 776446, bcfw.co.uk

This is the fourth wine that I have written up from the La Rioja Alta wine company in the 783 times I have put pen to paper on this page. That’s a good percentage of appearances for a single wine company, but this red is not from Rioja. I must admit that I got a little excited as I tasted this masterful Ribera, and then my palate took a step back when I learned that the alcohol percentage is a little over 15% by volume! Hefty, but I can assure you that this lusty fellow is impeccably balanced on the palate. It is one of the most expressive old vine Riberas I have tasted, and given it is only five years old, the fruit and tannin, and the 16 months spent in new French oak, are all very integrated.

My wine-scribe pal Tim Atkin has awarded this beauty a heady score of 96/100. There is a phenomenon in the wine world called scorecreep. This is when seemingly mesmerised wine journos hand out nosebleed scores to all manner of illdeserving wines. This disease is rife in our industry and something which punters have wisely learned to ignore after having consumed far too many wines with highnineties scores and dreary flavours. Mr Atkin is not one of these fools. If I scored wines out of 100, I would also be up among the clouds. There is another attractive number attached to this wine, too – £35 is a small price to pay for this degree of sophistication.