Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Aquilon is a selection of the best plots of vines as well as the best Garnacha barrels in the cellar, produced as an intense blending exercise. 2013 was a very late harvest after a cool, rainy year. This is always a powerful, juicy and well-oaked red, fermented to 16% alcohol with neutral yeasts and matured in brand new oak barrels, 80% of them French and 20% American. They finished harvesting on November 28, the latest ever, and the harvest was dry and the grapes healthy. This is definitely a different, fresher year for their wines, and this Aquilon shows it. It could be a bit atypical for this bottling, it was a short yield, with higher acidity and more freshness. It is a wine starting to be approachable now, but it should be very long-lived. Time in bottle has already provided a hint of tertiary aromas and polished the tannins. This has to be one of the freshest years of Aquilón. It has a very defined style, and within that powerful style it's very good. 4,164 bottles were filled in September 2015.
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Wine Enthusiast
Smoky, roasted aromas of hickory and blackberry are patented for this label: all Alto Moncayo top-end bottlings open like this. In the mouth, this is direct, full bodied and high in energy. The flavors match the nose, meaning this tastes like dark berry fruits mixed with smoky oak and char, while the finish turns chocolaty, with pepper, wild berry, spice notes and heat. Drink through 2022.
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James Suckling
Rich aromas of red and black fruit with earthy and chocolate undertones. Full to medium body and a juicy, high level of tannins. Nicely done. Refined and delicious. From 100% garnacha.
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Wine Spectator
Flavors of blackberry and cassis mingle with notes of cocoa and licorice in this plush red, which shows good breadth. Well-integrated tannins and orange peel acidity keep this focused.
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.