Winemaker Notes
This wine has dark savory fruit with notes of bay, thyme and leather. Firmer structured and chalky on the palate. In typical Bodegas Ponce fashion, La Casilla manages to express the inherent power and structure of Bobal and it's native Manchuela, but goes so with the sort of grace and style that re-calls Cru Beaujolais
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A perfumed nose of redcurrants, thyme, orange zest, chocolate and clay. It’s medium-bodied with fine tannins and bright acidity. Juicy and crunchy with a vibrant core of fruit. Excellent texture. From organically grown grapes. Drink now or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 La Casilla is pure Bobal from organically farmed vineyards, 80% of them on limestone soils, 20% on clay and limestone and the remaining 20% from stony soils, all fermented with 100% full clusters in 4,500-liter oak vats and matured in a combination of 600-liter barrels and 4,500-liter vats for nine months. It's only 12.5% and has very good balance and freshness, with typicity and approachable, with limestone chalky minerality and complex, fresh and pleasant. It was interesting to compare the 2019 with the 2020, and that's when I saw how this 2019 felt more rustic and with an earthy touch, a faint leather and meat touch and a palate with abundant, slightly dusty tannins.
Bobal is enjoying a mini renaissance in Spain today as high-elevation vineyards in its homeland of Utiel-Requena produce dense and velvety wines dominated by dark berry and cocoa characteristics. However, its function as Spain’s second most planted red grape variety was once only for bulk wine and concentrate. Since it is drought-resistant, it does well grown as unirrigated bush vines and acts as a fine voice of terroir. Somm Secret—Bobal also shows great potential for rosé and sparkling wines because of its high levels of acidity and anthocyanins.
The Moors gave it the name, ‘Manxa,’ which fittingly means ‘parched earth.’ La Mancha, the largest Spanish wine producing region in all of Spain, is one of its hottest and driest. Sturdy and drought-resistant white varieietes like Airen, Viura and Verdejo thrive in this environment.