"Last year we welcomed our first Ribera del Duero to the top 50 … and it was white. This year sweeps us back to the original inspiration for the post-1980 explosion in plantings on Spain’s Duero: deep, dark Tempranillo-based red grown at altitude, and packed with an energy and force which clearly contrasts with the softer, more reposeful pleasures of classical Rioja. This wine is an opaque black-red in the glass, with aromas in which its 27 months in oak can be discerned. For all that, it’s the fruit – sombre, driving, insistent – that’s on the front foot, with just a little tobacco and leather beginning to point the way to bottle-evolution. It’s big in the mouth – but not wide or fat; that altitude brings instead a kind of aerial urgency. The quickening acidity plays as much a structuring role in the wine as does its relatively light, graceful tannins. A long, tenacious finish suggests older-vine fruit."
- Decanter World Wine Awards Spectator (), 97 pts, Platinum Medal & Best in Show
"Underscored by loamy earth and smoke accents, this dark and brooding version displays muscular tannins knit with generous notes of plum sauce, steeped black cherry, balsamico and mocha. Long and creamy on the palate, offering a chewy finish of spice box and bay leaf notes, with a subtle tang of orange peel. Best after 2026. 364 cases made, 50 cases imported. - Alison NAPJUS"
