97 The Wine Advocate

$66.89 / 750ml (In Stock) - Buy Now

"At age 14, the wine is glorious, still young and with a mixture of primary and more developed notes."

- Luis Gutierrez, The Wine Advocate

Part of the Sierra Cantabria portfolio, Sierra Cantabria, Vinedos de Paganos and Teslo la Monja have been producing some of region's most highly sought after bottlings. I'm always pleasantly surprised by late releases of vintages that have been held back for a time at the cellars. The El Puntido vineyard is at 600 meters and was planted in 1975.

2008 Vinedos de Paganos El Puntido Gran Reserva

97 The Wine Advocate

$66.89/750ml - (In Stock) Buy Now

I was greatly impressed by the 2008 El Puntido Gran Reserva, a wine with a more traditional profile than the majority of wines from the Eguren family. At age 14, the wine is glorious, still young and with a mixture of primary and more developed notes. It goes more in the direction of the old wines, with balsamic notes of incense and cedarwood, mushrooms and some berries and herbs. It's complex and elegant, with fully resolved tannins. This was bottled back in May 2011, so it's been in bottle for over a decade, and the texture shows it. It has 14% alcohol and a pH of 3.55. This matured in brand-new French oak barrels for 28 months, and the wine has absorbed the oak completely. Drink 2022-2035. --Luis Gutierrez, The WIne Advocate

Also Available:

2019 Sierra Cantabria El Bosque Rioja

98 JD / 97+ WA

$144.89/750ml - (In Stock) Buy Now

The 2019 Finca el Bosque is another single vineyard and comes from a site on a deep, gravelly escarpment overlooking the Ebro River. It offers more ripe blue fruits and cassis as well as sappy herbs, flowers, violets, graphite, and chalky minerality. It shows a more elegant, flawlessly balanced, incredibly pure style on the palate, with ultra-fine tannins, wonderful overall balance, and no hard edges. This is pure class. Give bottles 3-4 years in the cellar and enjoy over the following two decades of more.--Jeb Dunnuck

I was truly impressed by the elegance, finesse and balance of the 2019 El Bosque, which shows very integrated oak and velvety tannins. It comes from deep gravel soils that produce powerful wines, but somehow this 2019 is very elegant, and it's already approachable. For Marcos Eguren, this shows what El Bosque is. This matured in new oak barrels, 95% of them French and the rest from central Europe. 5,000 bottles were filled in July 2021.â€”Luiz Gutierrez, The Wine Advocate

2018 Vinedos de Paganos La Nieta
$147.89/750ml - (In Stock) Buy Now

98 TA / 97 WE / 95 VM

At its best - and La Nieta is a very good example - 2018 produced some delicious wines in Rioja. This single vineyard parcel of 1.78 hectares, planted on bony clay and limestone soils in 1975, has produced one of the wines of the vintage. Spicy, textured and beautifully wooded, it has precision, poise and palate length. --Tim Atkin

This deeply colored wine features a bouquet of black cherry, white chocolate and clove. It fills the palate with firm tannins and flavors of blackberry preserves, milk chocolate, roasted fennel bulb and orange zest. Notes of violet and flint grace the enduring finish. - MD, Wine Enthusiast

Dark, brilliant ruby. A highly perfumed bouquet evokes red and blue fruit preserves, incense and potpourri, along with building mineral and exotic spice nuances. Juicy, appealingly sweet and concentrated on the palate, offering intense black raspberry, cherry liqueur and spice cake flavors that become livelier with air. Smoothly blends power and delicacy and finishes extremely long and smooth, with well-knit tannin's and resonating florality. Drinking window: 2025 â€“ 2035 â€“Josh Raynolds, Vinous Media