Elias Mora, Toro DO (Castilla y León, Spain) 2015

 Pardon my French — especially in relation to a Spanish wine — but this is kick-ass juice from a big, ripe vintage, and you will not soon forget it almost regardless of when you taste it, whether that’s now or 20 years from now.  The aromas are assertively spicy and toasty, which makes sense given that the wine was aged in 100% new French oak for 17 months.  On the palate, the fruit is imposingly concentrated and deep in flavor, and the physical weight of the wine is again quite formidable.  In most cases, these characteristics show up in what I call, “Statement Wines,” in which a winemaker or proprietor is trying to impress or “make a statement” rather than craft something beautiful and enjoyable.  But in this case, what you get is…precisely something beautiful and enjoyable.  Beware that this is a wine that will benefit greatly from time in the cellar, but with that caveat stated, it is so proportional and so skillfully made that you could certainly enjoy it now with some very serious meat or fine aged cheese.  I found this hard to score because it is so big but yet so well behaved, rather like a polite bull, and how does one understand a polite bull?  But the point is, if my score is off, I made sure it was off on the low side, so buy this with confidence for a special occasion.