There was no Gran Reserva from Imperial in 2013, a cooler, slightly whimsical year, but Maria felt that the rocky Alavesa vineyards merited the honour for the Viña Real. Today the jury is still out; there is leather complexity, for sure, but also a nagging stalkiness, which, for all one’s attempts to ascribe virtue and structure, may well finally presage a decline and then a fall.