Tempos Vega Sicilia Pintia 2015
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Pintia 2015 offers interesting fruity and spicy aroma. This is a very concentrated vintage, but also has plenty of tension and persistence on the palate; a precise wine with a long journey ahead.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A very structured and intense Pintia with lots of blackberry, chocolate and cedar character. Full body. Yet, it’s more refined than in past vintages. One of the more balanced bottlings from this winery. Delicious already. Available in 2020. Better after 2021.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The only wine produced here is the 2015 Pintia, which, in the warm and dry 2015, reaches 15% alcohol and has moderate acidity and a creamy, soft texture, with plenty of concentration, ripeness and tannins. It fermented in oak vats and matured in oak barrels (new and used, French and American) for 12 months. It was a powerful vintage, and they did part of the malolactic fermentation in oak vats instead of 100% in barrique to keep some of the freshness, and they also have 15,000 liters of wine that can mature in stainless steel and rotate some lots in vat before they are put in barrique. All this goes in the direction of keeping the freshness of the wine in a zone where power comes naturally, and all the tools are welcomed, including the use of different toast in the barrels. All this seems to have paid off, and even if the wine is powerful and tannic, it has good balance and the tannins are fine-grained. This has reached a good balance between power and elegance. 203,857 bottles, 6,496 magnums and some larger formats produced. It was bottled in May 2017.
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Decanter
Toro used to resist taming. With 2015 Pintia is showing the results of work started in 2008 on the vineyard and in the winery. The palate will always be dense – after all, this is Toro. But the aromatics are tempting, with lively refined oak and red fruits. The acidity is bright. It's a wine that needs time. My score is 93-plus – I'd like to come back to it nearer its drinking time and reassess it. Pintia is emerging as a relative of Vega Sicilia that’s very much worth following.
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Wine Spectator
Harmonious, with good depth, this solid red delivers black cherry and currant flavors backed by licorice, tar and smoky notes. Firm tannins and fresh acidity give it a balanced structure.
Other Vintages
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Vega Sicilia set themselves an ambitious challenge when they started purchasing vineyards in Toro in 1997. This region was well-known for wines of great character, but little finesse. For 4 years they perfected their style in secret, before finally releasing the 2001 under the name Pintia.
Toro is located further along the Duero river from Vega Sicilia, in hotter, wilder territory as one approaches the Portuguese border (after which, the Duero becomes the famous Douro of Port fame). Altitudes are slightly lower than in the Ribera del Duero, making for very hot days, but 500-700m altitudes stil mean big day-night temperature changes, so acidity and fruit are preserved.
The grape here is 100% Tinta de Toro, a thick-skinned local clone of Tempranillo. The Vega team carefully vinify the wine to extract only the finest tannins and maintain aromatic purity, and age one year in the highest quality French and American oak barrels. Pintia displays the style and class (elegance, even !) of a Vega Sicilia Group wine, but with the extra spicy, forceful presence of a Toro. Early critical reaction has been ecstatic, and pricing remains eminently reasonable for a wine of this quality.
Notoriously food-friendly, long-lasting and Spain’s most widely planted grape, Tempranillo is the star variety of red wines from Rioja and Ribera del Duero. The Rioja terms Joven, Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva indicate both barrel and bottle time before release. Traditionally blended in Rioja with Garnacha, plus a bit of Mazuelo (Carignan) and Graciano, the Tempranillo in Ribera del Duero typically stands alone. Somm Secret—Tempranillo claims many different names depending on location. In Penedès, it is called Ull de Llebre and in Valdepeñas, goes by Cencibel. Known as Tinta Roriz in Portugal, Tempranillo plays an important role in Port wine.
Spain's remote, high elevation Spanish wine zone between the regions of Bierzo and Ribera del Duero produces intense, full-bodied reds made from Tempranillo, locally called Tinta de Toro. This local variant has adapted to the region’s climatic extremes and recognizing its potential, top producers from Ribera del Duero and Rioja have invested heavily in its vineyards.