A Rioja form a declared vintage! Not really, but nearly. This is a step up from normal Reserva and is only possible in an exceptional year. 2006 qualifies as just such a year and lends a more notable quality of fruit to an already winning wine. Glorioso, if you don't know, has a markedly more elegant house style (hinted at by the Burgundy-shaped bottle) and this is a very capable food-pair Rioja. Medium-bodied and very smooth this is really rather special.
Don Cosme Palacio founded his eponymous Bodegas in the Rioja Alavesa in 1894. The Glorioso range was introduced in 1928. The Reserva Especial enjoys extended maceration and malolactic fermentation before being aged for a minimum of three years before release. It spends at least one year in new French oak barrels before being bottled and cellared further.
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Bodegas Palacio has been an innovator in viticultural methods and style under oenologists Roberto Rodriguez and Michel Rolland. The latter, a Bordeaux-based winemaker-consultant, has had an enormous influence on the fruit-driven international style dominant today. Faced with the temptation of this popular approach, Rodriguez, a Laguardia native, has nevertheless created his own style. Using indigenous Tempranillo, and through careful fruit selection from old vines and slow fermentation, he balances fruit with mainly French oak
