Atalaque (Rodriguez de Vera), Garnacha de la Peraleda, Mentrida 2021 - 75cl

If Las Cárcavas is the everyday Atalaque, Garnacha de la Peraleda is the one to sit with. It comes from a single parcel of roughly seventy-year-old Garnacha in Fuensalida, deep in DO Méntrida, and Pepe Rodríguez de Vera bottles only a few thousand of it — around 4,800 in the 2021.

Old vines and a year in French oak give this weight the entry wine doesn't reach for. The colour is a medium garnet; the nose is clean and intense, red and black fruit — strawberry, cherry — laced with white stone, ginger and warm Mediterranean spice. On the palate it is dry and properly structured, medium-bodied, with a dusty grain of tannin and an acidity that carries the wine's generous ripeness (this sits above 15% alcohol yet never feels hot). The finish runs long and mineral.

Give it air and it keeps unfolding. Lovely now, it will hold and gain for a good five years yet.

How to Serve

Serve at 16°C in a large-bowled glass. A thirty-minute decant helps a young single-vineyard Garnacha show its perfume and settle its structure.

Where to Drink It

Barrafina for the Iberian mood and a list that respects Spanish reds. Or Sabor near Regent Street, where the cooking can stand up to this.

Food Pairings

Slow-roast shoulder of lamb, cooked until it falls apart. A hard sheep's cheese such as aged Manchego is the easy alternative.