Dominio del Águila Canta la Perdiz 2013

Crítica

Añada 2013 > 98 puntos
There is a new single-vineyard bottling that was produced in tiny quantities in 2011 and 2012, to learn and understand the vineyard, and those bottles might sometimes see the light (but in homeopathic doses). But the first true 'commercial' release will be the 2013 Canta la Perdiz, of which some 1,200 bottles and a bunch of magnums were filled in June 2016. The Canta la Perdiz vineyard is in the village of La Aguilera, where all their vineyards are, and it's an old vineyard (they all are, too!) with some older and younger vines, because it seems like it was planted at two different times—one in the early 1900s, and the older vines must be 150 years old (and therefore ungrafted). Replanting was also done through the years by burying a branch from an existing vine, and therefore there are younger and older individual plants even within the same sectors. This is a south-facing vineyard that might work best in a cooler year like this 2013, while Peñas Aladas, an east-facing vineyard, might behave better in warmer years like 2012. But what's important and different here is the soil, with a type of limestone in layers (slate-like) easily penetrable by the roots, and the wines are not as austere as those from hard limestone rock. The wine is extremely elegant, perfumed and transparent, crystalline, precise and focused, refined and harmonious. As with all of these old vineyards, it has a mixture of grapes, always dominated by Tempranillo (close to 80% in this vineyard), but with many other varieties, maybe 10-15% of Cariñena, and then a little Bruñal, Bobal, Albillo... They always ferment the full clusters of the different varieties together, but depending on the climatic conditions they might take out the bunches of certain varieties that do not achieve good ripeness; in 2013 they could use all of the grapes here. The wine aged slowly and for a very long time in oak barrels in a very cold cave, where the aging is extremely slow, as the low temperatures (the ideal 12 degrees Celsius all year round) make it evolve at a glacial pace. It's fluid, it feels weightless, but with inner strength, tension, electricity, power and elegance. It's terribly elegant, but it has the Ribera del Duero character. This is really outstanding. The price has not yet been set. Let's keep our fingers crossed. As I mentioned, there will be a handful of bottles of 2011 and 2012.