Winemaker Notes
This wine is very special, with a complexity that makes it different from the rest of wines at the winery. The Pino is made from a single "Bobal vineyard". The wine has a magnificent and minerally personality because it grows on solid rock. With aromas of gypsum and wet chalk, the palate shows great acidity and dried rose petal notes, finishing with a delightful balsamic taste.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Pino was produced with the Bobal grapes from one hectare of 40-year-old vines on limestone soils. With the idea to achieve a more serious age-worthy red, it fermented in 4,500-liter oak vats and matured in a 3,500-liter oval oak foudre. It has 13.5% alcohol and good acidity and freshness with the usual parameters for the grape (pH 3.57 and 5.7 grams of acidity). This was the more reductive of the 2022s that I tasted; the wine is more austere and feels a bit more rustic in the palate, but it was bottled only two months before I tasted it.
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.