Winemaker Notes
Ample and dynamic palate, with noble and polished tannins. Succulent and fresh.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The heady, meaty, smoky and spicy 2019 VS has an exuberant nose that's really open, expressive and powerful, reflecting a warm and dry year with 60% less rain than the average. The grapes were picked on September 11 and 18 from the vineyards in Traspinedo and El Rosal, fermented in stainless steel with indigenous yeasts and matured in a combination of new and used barriques for 26 months. This is a serious red for the long haul, a textbook Castilian Tempranillo with very good ripeness and power, 14.5% alcohol and generous but integrated oak that should get more and more integrated as years go by.
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.