PSI 2022, 2021 y 2020

Crítica

2022 / 93-95 puntos
The 2022 PSI is clean, expressive and open, much more approachable than the more reductive 2021 that I tasted next to it. It's primary, fruit-driven and precise. "The fruit selection was better in 2022," explained Sisseck. It has contained ripeness and a polished texture and is sleek and elegant, with fine tannins. It feels like a step up from 2021. This was also the final blend waiting to be bottled—clarified, sulfur added and everything, so pretty much the wine that is going to be bottled.
2021 / 93+ puntos
The bottled 2021 PSI is a bit reticent and closed, the most backward of the 2021s—it's even a bit reductive. This has some 8% Garnacha In 2021, he decided to start buying some of the vineyards; until then, he bought the grapes from these old vineyards, but most of the growers who work these vineyards are also old and some cannot work anymore. So, the solution is to buy their vineyards, which represents an administrative problem too, as the ownership and legal aspects of these vines is sometimes not clear. He now has 50 hectares, with the idea to own 100 hectares of the 200 they use for the wine. That also represents a change, as they need more people to work the vineyards, tractor drivers and so on. "Which is a lot of work," he told me, "but very good fun." The wine takes time to open up; the nose is hard to read, but the palate is much better. It has a medium to full-bodied palate and tannins that are a lot more elegant and polished, more sophisticated and precise than in the initial vintages, and it has gained in seriousness. Some 349,000 bottles and some larger formats produced. It was bottled in July 2023.
2020 / 93 puntos
In 2020, he reached the target he set for himself when PSI first started, to produce around 300,000 bottles (it's actually 350,000 bottles). The volume of the 2020 PSI is something that's important, as it has availability and affordability, which is necessary when based on quality, purchasing only grapes from old vines (they use 7,000 plots for this volume!). So, they also started purchasing some of those vineyards in 2022 (they think they need 200 hectares to keep the volume, so the aim is to own maybe half of it). Peter Sisseck remarked that we have to remember 2020 was a warm year, but with the high content of limestone in the soils, the wine has kept very good freshness. They harvested early, before the rain, and they also used some 5% to 10% Garnacha (they could use up to 25%, according to regulations) in the blend to lower the pH of the wine. Below 3.8, he thinks, the wines from the zone are very angular and hard if it's only Tempranillo, so Garnacha (which doesn't have as much tannins as Tempranillo) can help with that; but the difficulty is finding Garnacha grapes, so they are considering planting some Garnacha for the future. The bottled wine has all that the sample promised—clean and healthy aromas, floral and elegant, aromatic and with good freshness. The palate is medium-bodied, with elegant tannins, pleasant and easy to drink. 350,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in July 2022. End of January 2023, The Wine Advocate