Winemaker Notes
‘Aquilon’ is the jewel in the crown, a selection of the best: the best areas and the best barrels from those areas. It is a 100% Garnacha wine from 60 to 100 year-old vines, and aged for 24 months in new barrels. A powerful fulsome wine in the mouth, fleshy and fresh, with a great concentration of flavour and excellent balance; it is like “tasting the very essence of the Garnacha grape”.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The top cuvée is the 2015 Alto Moncayo Aquilon, 100% Garnacha that’s mostly barrel fermented and aged in 10% larger oak American Hogshead and 90% in new French oak. It tastes like the straight Alto Moncayo, just slightly more concentrated, pure, and polished. Black raspberries, crème de cassis, toasted spices, chocolate, and crushed flower notes all give way to a full-bodied, ethereally textured, seamless, yet power-packed beauty that I’d be thrilled to drink anytime over the coming decade or more.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I tasted two vintages of the top of the range side by side, the 2015 Aquilón and the 2016, and I cannot say I found many nuances or differences between the two or even with the rest of the range. The ripe Garnacha produced juice with 16% alcohol that matured in brand-new French and American oak barrels for two years, and during that time the wine seems to have extracted plenty of aromas, flavors and tannins from the new wood to make them overtly oaky and very similar. The 2015 seems to have polished a little the creamy notes that were more evident in the younger 2016, but other than that, I'm sure there's a section of the drinking population that loves this style, but I find it increasingly more and more difficult to enjoy wines like these. That's without mentioning the price! Perhaps I'm wrong and these wines will be fantastic in 50 years' time, but from my experience, if wines are over-oaked, they remain over-oaked forever.
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Wine Spectator
This plush red delivers bold flavors of kirsch, blood orange and dark chocolate, with light, firm tannins and juicy acidity. Rich and heady, but with enough acidity to stay lively. Drink now through 2022.
Grenache thrives in any warm, Mediterranean climate where ample sunlight allows its clusters to achieve full phenolic ripeness. While Grenache's birthplace is Spain (there called Garnacha), today it is more recognized as the key player in the red blends of the Southern Rhône, namely Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Côtes du Rhône and its villages. Somm Secret—The Italian island of Sardinia produces bold, rustic, single varietal Grenache (there called Cannonau). California, Washington and Australia have achieved found success with Grenache, both flying solo and in blends.
Campo de Borja DO sits in the northwest province of Zaragoza (Aragon, Spain) south of Rioja and north of Cariñena. Since this area acquired DO status in the 1980s, it has gradually shown its own unique identity. Campo de Borja’s winegrowing history and heritage is rich in relation to Garnacha; the oldest vineyards in the DO date back to 1890. Furthermore, of the almost 4,000 hectares of this variety, more than 2,000 are between 30 and 50 years old.
Most production continues to be reds, and the number of crianzas and reservas is growing. Though less common, they produce white wines as well. Today, both red and rosé wines have won the respect of experts, and the intensely fruity, young red wines enjoy significant commercial success. The principal white grape varieties are Macabeo, Moscatel, Chardonnay, Garnacha Blanca, Sauvignon Blanc and Verdejo. The principal red grape varieties include Garnacha Tinta, Tempranillo, Syrah, Mazuela, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.