Reserva

Reserva is a classification term that you will mainly come across on Spanish wine, and it tells you something about how long the wine has been aged before it is allowed to be sold. So it is not the name of a particular wine or a grape variety, but an expression of a minimum ageing time, set by the region's rules. In Rioja, where the system is best known, Reserva is part of a ladder of categories along with Joven, Crianza and Gran Reserva. A red Reserva has to mature for at least three years in total, part of which takes place in oak barrels and the rest in the bottle. For white and rosé wines the requirements are shorter.

The term matters for what you taste. The longer maturation, often in oak barrels, typically gives a rounder and more developed wine with notes that can be reminiscent of vanilla, dried fruits, spices or leather, rather than the fresh, fruit-driven style of a younger wine. You can recognise it easily on the label or on the small quality seal that the region puts on the bottle as a guarantee of authenticity.

A widespread misunderstanding is that Reserva always means higher quality. First and foremost it tells you something about ageing time, not about the original level of the grapes. In countries without the same legislation, the word can also be used more freely, so here it is worth reading what the producer actually means by it.