Navajas, Blanco Crianza, Rioja

Apologies for continued monosyllabic score-only grunts but (triumphant) election campaigning in UK has rather taken up all my time! These are the scores of the past week+. Promise more comment once fully recovered. Drunk tonight and I have to be honest has improved noticeably with age - unfortunately my last - 87+

To be fair the vanilla oak, while still very apparent, has nonetheless receded since my January note thus allowing the fruit element to show much better. The result is a markedly more balanced end product. For food. Drink over the next year.

Purchased at a tasting last autumn for the girls. Its a matter of personal taste! Hers indoors and my eldest daughter love the style...as for me... Extremely dominant vanilla oak that almost swamps any fruit and nut elements in this viscous full bodied and rather unsubtle wine. Drink with food...in my case grin and bare it! Till the end of decade.

Consistent with previous. VGV.

Fat buttery oak-led rioja. Serve cold.

Very nice example of the style. Oak-led, buttery richness coming through on the palate.

WSET Level 2; 10/30/2013-11/1/2013 (WSET School, London) : Oaky, smoke and toasty nose. Sweet oak notes in the palate. Not much complexity.

Clear and bright, medium lemon colour and presence of legs. The nose is clean with medium+ intensity aromas of coconut, vanilla, quince, biscuit, peaches and simple fruit notes. It's fully developed. It's dry in the mouth with a medium+ acidity, medium+ alcohol, medium body and medium intensity flavours of quince, coconut, vanilla and smoke. The finish is of medium length. It's an acceptable quality wine, it lacks balance between acidity and fruit concentration, the oak is not integrated and overly …