Search Wine Reviews

El Escoces Volante - WA #248 - April 2020

wa"I tasted via videoconference with Norrel Robertson, the flying Scotsman ("el Escocés volante"), during the Covid-19 lockdown, and he presented a majority of 2018s, a fantastic vintage in many parts of Spain, including Aragón and more specifically Calatayud, the main place where he works. After the catastrophic 2017 when he lost 75% of the crop to frost, comes a year of freshness and fragrant, delicate and juicy wines when there's a shift to using more of their own grapes from the village of Villarroya de la Sierra, a cooler, higher altitude place with red clay and limestone soils rather than the slate found in other parts of the appellation. Some are sold without Calatayud appellation because they are fermented outside the appellation's limits (one of the nonsenses of the rules of the appellations of origin in Spain), and of course, he also works in Galicia, Murcia and Valencia. He produces a grand total of 300,000 bottles per year. Many wines are produced in Flextank (plastic) eggs; he only has a couple of concrete eggs, used for Es Lo Que Hay and En Sus Trece. The wines are exuberant and showy, round and lush, not shy.

2020 started with the purchase of a 4.7-hectare site on the outskirts of the village of Cervera de La Cañada, where he plans to consolidate production of his own 26 hectares of vineyards under the same roof. Other than preserving some old vineyards, he has also planted some new ones for the future, and he is planning to plant more in the coming years. Among the old vineyards is a new jewel in the crown, a 1.2-hectare stony plot planted in the 1930s with red Garnacha (Fina) and some other local varieties; it was first fermented separately in 2019.- Luis Gutiérrez"

- Robert Parker's Wine Advocate (Issue #248, April 2020)