
Traditional 2004 Ribera del Duero Redux
We were eating steak and roasted mushrooms with some wine-loving (and generous) friends just before the holidays. There were fancy bottles: mature Bordeaux, '99 Dunn and '94 Dominus, and more. And they were singing!
But one lesser-known bottle of Spanish wine was holding its own in that crowd. It had the fruit and complexity of just-mature traditional Tempranillo from Ribera del Duero, combining the punchiness you want for pairing with charred meat with the elegance to make you want to keep going back to it, even after the food was done.