2020 Yjar (Rioja)
$419.67 per OWC of 3 x 750ml
($139.89 ea) Pre-Arrival- Buy Now
97 DB / 96+ WA / 96 JA
(Rioja DOC; a blend of Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano, Granegro and Rojal; 14% alcohol). Dark berries and black cherries, a little touch of baking spice, but incense too. Graphite. More open-textured at first than Matallana, but the grippy tannins sculpt this drawing the fruit back to the spine and increasing the intensity through the mid-palate. More glacial, sapid and juicy than Matallana, but with considerable density and impact, above all on the finish. Impressive. Very Telmo Rodriguez! - Colin Hay, Drinks Business
The nose of the 2020 Yjar developed very floral notes with time in the glass, making it very aromatic, expressive and elegant. This is completely different from the other two reds, as this comes from a specific plot. It reveals the finesse of the marl soils and the austerity of the stones. It was a year of sorting and discarding (they had hail) to achieve the consistency they look for in this wine. The different varieties co-planted in the vineyard fermented together (there's more Garnacha here) in open-top oak vats with indigenous yeasts. The wine matured in foudres and barrels of different sizes for approximately 30 months. It's elegant and clean, with a seamless palate, very fine tannins and a vibrant mouthfeel. 12,656 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2023. - Luis Gutierrez, Wine Advocate
2021 Tapias de Marques de Riscal (Rioja)
$257.67 per OWC of 3 x 750ml
($85.89 ea) Pre-Arrival - Buy Now
97 DWWA / 97 DB
The perfect marriage of finely toasted spicy oak and simmering dark cherry fruit which oozes and swells across the nose and palate. Deeply concentrated, with a crunchy, mouth-filling texture and intense tannins. Full of youthful exuberance.-Platinum Award, Decanter World Wine Awards
Intense, bright and fresh, but with a very full robe, nice amplitude and a pronounced sense of aromatic tension. The aromatics lead one to anticipate, even before it passes one’s lips, the struggle between the amplitude the fruit wants to take and the tannins that want to pull it back to the spine. Graphite and a touch of cedar with aeration. Sous bois notes. I find this quite bordelais in a way. Lovely. Leafy aromatics. Hyper-fresh. One senses the altitude. Light and lifted, yet considerable density. Dark berry fruits, brambles and mulberries, damsons. Wild thyme and lemon thyme. Ink. It’s fuller and deeper than you expect, with gloriously fine-grained tannins – not really beady before finer grained than that implies. Fantastically pure and precise, especially given both the layering and the density. Lovely structure. Beautifully shaped, but more fluid than chiselled implies. Long and gently rippling on the sapid and juicy finish. Excellent. A vin de garde as ever but all is there and with great harmony. - Colin Hay, The Drinks Business
2021 CVNE Real De Asua Carromaza (Rioja)
$443.34 per OWC of 6 x 750ml
($73.89 ea) Pre-Arrival - Buy Now
96 WA / 96 JS / 96 JA / 95 DB
I also tasted the 2021 Real de Asúa, which was already in bottle. 2021 was cooler, and the wine has a little less alcohol than the 2020 I tasted next to it. It comes from the same vines and the process was similar, but in this case, they didn't use any new barrels in the aging, which took place in 100% second-use barriques. This was very recently bottled and felt a little dizzy, with a slightly blurry nose, somehow creamy and with a more oxidative touch and a more solid palate, a little more exuberant and with abundant tannins that need time to get polished and/or powerful food. I might be getting it wrong, because the harvest was better than 2020. But today, the wine is still a bit of a question mark. Time will tell... 14,493 bottled produced. It was bottled in January 2024. - Luis Gutiérrez, Wine Advocate
2021 Telmo Rodriguez Matallana
(Ribera del Duero)
$359.34 per OWC of 6 x 750ml
($59.89 ea) Pre-Arrival- Buy Now
97 WA / 97 JA / 97 DB / 94 WI
The Ribera del Duero red 2021 Matallana comes from a challenging year but with very good potential for quality and quantity. It has grapes from different vineyards in five different villages on different soils, where they made a big selection to keep the very best grapes; they got 80,000 kilograms of grapes and ended up producing some 22,000 bottles. It fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel and oak vats. It matured in French oak barrels of different sizes for 14 months. This is a superb classical Ribera del Duero with ripeness, concentration, balance and elegance and the freshness from a cooler year marked by the big snowstorm in January and a milder summer. It has 14.4% alcohol with a pH of 3.72 and 4.6 grams of acidity. It's very spicy and peppery, showy and extroverted, very spicy with some exotic notes of nutmeg, ripe wild berries, violets and herbs. It's medium to full-bodied with very chalky tannins and is tasty, almost salty. 22,450 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2023. - Luiz Gutierrez, Wine Advocate
2020 Algueira Dolio (Ribeira Sacra)
$413.34 per OWC of 6 x 750ml
($69.89 ea) Pre-Arrival - Buy Now
96 JA / 94+ DB / 94 WA
Medium intensity ruby red colour, floral rose bud, raspberry leaf, red cherry, dried herbs, black tea, lemongrass, intense and fragrant, a wine that appeals to lovers of intense flavours, a foodie wine because it is about texture and contrast, rather than being layered with sweet oak. Extremely juicy on the finish, mouthwatering and extremely drinkable, joyful, crammed with flavour and interest. Can be drunk soon, or will have a good ten years ageing in it. Just the second vintage on the Place de Bordeaux, and already it feels like it has found its place. A clear win for me. Granite, schist soils, native yeast fermentation in 500l barrels with stems, vineyards ranging from 200-600m in altitude. Just 6,668 bottles produced by winemaker Fernando Gonzalez Riveiro. I have tasted this a few times over the summer in different situations, and each time the biggest takeaway is that it is full of character and life, and is one that you will enjoy sharing with friends.-Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux
2023 De la Riva Macharnudo San Cayetano Vino de Pasto
(Jerez)
$419.34 per OWC 6 x 750ml
($69.89 ea) Pre-Arrival- Buy Now
97 JS / 96 DB
The aromas of sliced apples, blossom honey, lilacs and salt follow through to a medium body with energy and focus. Notes of flint. So lively and vivid, with a classic nature and a compressed palate. It’s refined, compact and totally integrated. More refined than the 2022. Pure palomino. From a single parcel in one of the best vineyards of Jerez. Fermented in Sherry casks and then aged with 15% flor. Drinkable now, but even better from 2025. - James Suckling
(Vino di Pasto; 100% Palomino; 13.5% alcohol; this is an unfortified Palomino and comes from the famous Macharnudo vineyard in Jerez). I loved this special and extremely distinctive wine last year and it feels wonderfully familiar and every bit as good in the 2023 vintage. Candlewax and a hint of myrrh, with that distinct note that reminds me here again of Dauvissat’s Premier Cru Chablis La Forest. There’s a touch of white almond flesh, but this is also crisply bone dry (so don’t start thinking frangipane here). There’s confit lime too and a little peach flesh, maybe a touch of quince. One the palate this is full and rich, more so than the vertical and lifted aromatics lead you to expect – it’s as if we’ve gone now from a vertical to a rather more horizontal register. Intense and quite dense and viscous, but with a wondrous up-thrust of fresh bloody orange juice from below just when it starts to feel a little too rich. Tense and taut on the finish after that enervating injection of freshness. - Colin Hay, Drinks Business
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