Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I already tasted the 2016 El Marciano, the Garnacha from Gredos from Alfredo Maestro, from plots of old vines throughout the village of Navarredondilla, in the province of Ávila. They keep the wine as pure as possible; it's bottled completely unoaked. The destemmed but uncrushed grapes fermented in stainless steel with indigenous yeasts. It's fragrant, perfumed and floral, elegant, with very fine tannins and a fresh palate with just a touch of warmth in the finish. This could very well be the finest vintage of this bottling to date and one of my favorite Maestro wines ever.
Spanish red wine is known for being bold, heady, rustic and age-worthy, Spain is truly a one-of-a-kind wine-producing nation. A great majority of the country is hot, arid and drought-ridden, and since irrigation has only been recently introduced and (controversially) accepted, viticulture has sustained—and flourished—only through a great understanding of Spain’s particular conditions. Large spacing between vines allows each enough resources to survive and as a result, the country has the most acreage under vine compared to any other country, but is usually third in production.
Of the Spanish red wines, the most planted and respected grape variety is Tempranillo, the star of Spain’s Rioja and Ribera del Duero regions. Priorat specializes in bold red blends, Jumilla has gained global recognition for its single varietal Monastrell and Utiel-Requena has garnered recent attention for its reds made of Bobal.