Viña Ardanza Rioja Reserva 2012 Half Bottle 375ml

With 95 points from James Suckling and 94 points from Decanter and Wine Advocate – the latter calling it a “Brilliant Ardanza!” – this is a very serious half bottle of Rioja Reserva. It’s crafted from Tempranillo picked from 30-year-old vines and Grenache grown at high altitude. Aged for around three years in oak, the wines from the two grapes were combined to create an elegant blend of cassis, fresh cherries, plum crumble, chocolate orange, flat white, Christmas spices, balsamic, leather and pipe tobacco. Half bottles like this are perfect for weekends away, those evenings when you had a G&T while cooking and just fancy a glass, or rail travel in serious style.

Formed in 1890 by three families – the Ardanzas, the Aranas and the Alberdis – La Rioja Alta sets the benchmark for the entire Rioja region. They're famed for their classic Spanish reds, which are aged for an inordinately long time in American oak barrels lovingly made by their own cooper. This wonderfully traditional producer still carries out its racking (the process of moving wine between barrels to remove the sediment) by hand and candlelight, the old-school way. The style of the wine dedicated to the Ardanza family is softer than most Rioja, influenced more by Burgundy than by Bordeaux, as the bottle shape suggests.