Melida Wines, Dos Alas Rojas, Ribera del Duero 2020 - 75cl

Two red wings is what the name means, and this is the bottle Miriam Valenti and Silvia Herrera reach for when they want to show you the serious side of Melida. It is their flagship, drawn from a single old parcel in Moradillo de Roa, where the vines are now around 35 years old and dig into the chalk and clay of the high Ribera.

The 2020 was a warm, generous growing season, and you can feel that ripeness in the glass. This is a big wine at 15%, though it never tips into heat. Expect dark cherry and cassis first, then the slower notes: cocoa bean, sweet clove, a lift of rose petal and aniseed that keeps the whole thing from feeling heavy. Twenty-four months in used 500-litre French oak has done its work quietly, adding a thread of vanilla and structure rather than a slab of toast. The tannins are abundant and faintly dusty, the sort that frame a wine built for the table. The finish is long and savoury, still fresh despite the vintage warmth, which is the altitude talking.

Only 1,500 bottles were made, so this is a wine to treat with some ceremony. The Wine Advocate gave the 2020 ninety-two points and flagged its riper character, which is fair, and part of its appeal on a cold night. It is drinking well now but has the frame to hold and soften over the next five to eight years, and a decant will only help it along.

Give it air and give it food; a decent glass helps too. This is Ribera with its sleeves rolled up.

How to Serve

Serve at 17-18C. Use a large-bowled glass and give it an hour in a decanter to let the 2020's ripeness and dusty tannins settle and open.

Where to Drink It

• Sabor, Mayfair - Nieves Barragan's live-fire Spanish cooking is made for a wine this size.
• Barrafina, Adelaide Street - pull up a counter stool and order the presa iberica.
• Noble Rot, Soho - a list that will happily sit this Ribera next to something Burgundian.

Food Pairings

Roast lamb shoulder studded with garlic, or a board of aged Manchego and jamon iberico.