Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Hecula, which comes from 60- to 80-year old non-irrigated vines planted in pure limestone soils, is a cuvée of 12,000 cases. The wine has fabulous texture, a deep ruby/purple color, plenty of chalky minerality mixed with blue and black fruits. The wine is rich, concentrated, quite savory and mouthfilling. This is a stunner that is remarkable for this price. In fact, it is probably too good, because most people that spend $12.00 would never believe a wine could be exceptional. But this certainly is. Drink it over the next several years.
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.