Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
There is a new top-of-the-range red Garnacha, the 2014 Brega, produced with grapes from extremely old vines. It started fermenting in 2,500-liter stainless-steel vats and finished in 500- and 600-liter oak barrels (40% of them new), where the wine matured for 20 months plus a further eight months in neural, well-seasoned 600-liter barrels. 1,000 meters altitude on slate soils. This has a whopping 16.1% alcohol! It's heady, ripe and generously oaked, very smoky and a little meaty, with a slightly international profile as the ripeness and élevage made it a bit mainstream. The palate is full-bodied with abundant, dusty tannins and a dry, warm finish where the oak is still very noticeable, as is the alcohol. Give it more time in bottle. Very good in its oaky, end-of-the-1990s style. For fans of oaky reds. 6,240 bottles were filled in April 2017.
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.