2016 Bodegas Pintia, Toro, Spain
Critics reviews
Saturated ruby. Expansive cherry, black raspberry, potpourri and exotic spice aromas are complemented by subtle licorice and woodsmoke flourishes. Vibrant and sharply focused in the mouth, with a spine of juicy acidity adding focus to palate-staining black and blue fruit liqueur, violet pastille, mocha and spicecake flavors. The floral quality resonates emphatically on the clinging finish, which features lingering cherry and smoky mineral notes. There's noteworthy elegance here, a trait that's not exactly common for Toro.
Drink 2024-2034
Josh Raynolds, Vinous (June 2021)
The 2016 Pintia comes from a cooler but drier vintage, and the wine has a little less alcohol and more freshness. It fermented in oak vats and matured in mostly new and mostly French oak, but this year they used a little more American oak with the idea to increase density. 2016 was an atypical year in Toro; they had plenty of time to pick the grapes with lower alcohol and wines with more elegance. This is clearly a more elegant vintage than 2015. The wine has some notes that took me to the Northern Rhône, and the oak is neatly integrated—it seems to get better integrated in cooler years. There is a mix of black and red fruit that denotes good freshness. The palate is medium-bodied, with a distinct lack of rusticity and density, and it's more fluid. It has abundant, chalky and fine-grained tannins and a supple, long and dry finish.
230,032 bottles, 6,517 magnums and some larger formats were produced. It was bottled in May 2018.
Drink 2020 - 2026
Luis Gutiérrez, The Wine Advocate (June 2021)
100% Tinta de Toro. 75% of the vineyards are in the surroundings of San Román de Hornija, with its outstanding clay soils and boulders. 25% on sandy soils. The vintage was one of the warmest and driest on record during the beginning of the cycle. However, September was quite cool, so it ended up being a somewhat unusual vintage, with less alcohol than normal. Manual harvest, cold-soaking and 25% American oak.
Although it is a vintage that finished more leisurely and fresh, this Pintia does not lose its forcefulness. Black nose showing cocoa, plum, coffee, charcoal, roasted notes. On the palate, it is a dense, concentrated black-fruit bomb with a touch of tar. So extraordinary with this level of concentration. It is the most forceful face of the Tempos Vega Sicilia group.
Drink 2020 - 2030
Ferran Centelles, JancisRobinson.com (July 2020)
This sanguine-driven red has a bold, concentrated expression, with black plum reduction, balsamic, grilled herb and espresso flavors. Oak spice, anise and cocoa details line up along the tannic finish.
Drink now to 2029
Gillian Sciaretta, Wine Spectator (November 2021)
Blueberry, lavender and some vanilla and cedar character. It’s medium-bodied with round tannins and a flavorful finish. Nice, creamy texture. It finishes reserved, polished and complex. So drinkable now, but one of the cellar as well.
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (September 2020)
About this WINE
Bodegas Pintia
Vega Sicilia’s owners, the Álvarez family, bought Bodegas Pintia in 1996, attracted to the galet-strewn terroir in the northern Spanish region of Toro, the rich clay subsoils and the familiar altitude. They decided to produce an alternative expression of Vega Sicilia’s style of Tinto Fino (Tempranillo) from this site.
Toro’s main point of difference to Ribera del Duero is the ambient temperature, which can blaze in the height of summer. The challenge here is to match concentration with elegance, a challenge met by Bodegas Pintia with no shortage of aplomb.
Toro
The wine region of Toro is a predominantly red-wine appellation in Castilla y León in north-western Spain. Toro is situated in the province of Zamora, west of the Rueda and Ribera del Duero wine appellations, and in the Spanish Duero river valley near the Portuguese border.
The Toro appellation covers approximately 5,600 hectares of vineyards at an altitude of 600 to 750 metres above sea level. The region produces red wine across the spectrum from Joven to Gran Reserva, but all grades must be made from at least 75 percent Tinta de Toro (the local name for a clone of the Tempranillo red grape). The best reds tend to contain 100 percent Tinta de Toro and are robust, concentrated and well-structured.
Cabernet Sauvignon is also planted in the region, but not permitted for its DO wines. White wines constitute only a small proportion of Toro production and are made from Malvasía and Verdejo.Toro made its breakthrough when some of the greatest names in the Spanish winemaking scene showed their trust in the region's potential, and moved on to establish their own estates there. These included Vega Sicilia's Álvarez family, Rioja's Marqués de Riscal and Mariano García (the former Vega Sicilia winemaker) with its new Toro winery Mauro-dos.
Jacques and François Lurton of Bordeaux also launched a winery (El Albar) in Toro, where they're making wine both alone and in partnership with renowned oenologist Michel Rolland (at his Campo Elíseo). In Valdefinjas, Rioja's Eguren family of Bodegas Sierra Cantabria has Numanthia-Termes, which makes Termanthia and Numanthia, two of the most well-known wines in the region today.
Tempranillo/Tinto Fino
A high quality red wine grape that is grown all over Spain except in the hot South - it is known as Tinto Fino in Ribera del Duero, Cencibel in La Mancha and Valdepenas and Ull de Llebre in Catalonia. Its spiritual home is in Rioja and Navarra where it constitutes around 70% of most red blends.
Tempranillo-based wines tend to have a spicy, herbal, tobacco-like character accompanied by ripe strawberry and red cherry fruits. It produces fresh, vibrantly fruit driven "jovenes" meant for drinking young. However Tempranillo really comes into its own when oak aged, as with the top Riojas where its flavours seem to harmonise perfectly with both French and American oak, producing rich, powerful and concentrated wines which can be extraordinarily long-lived.
In Ribera del Duero it generally sees less oak - the exception being Vega Sicilia where it is blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and then aged for an astonishing 7 years in oak and is unquestionably one of the world`s greatest wines.
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Description
Pintia is one of those hidden gems in Toro, Spain that excels year in year out and yet many have still not heard or are aware of this excellent wine. A dry and cool year the wine really stands out for its class, precision and freshness. It has a lovely aroma of dark fruit on the nose with a hint of garrigue and minerality that makes me think of an Old-world Syrah. The palate is medium bodied , with fine filagree tannins exhibiting a precision and tension that is sometimes missing in hotter years, whereby the fruit has a little more rusticity. The whole wine has elevated itself, it’s a more focussed beauty than previous vintages. Recent renovations in the Pintia cellars are hopefully part to blame and lets hope this continues. A fantastic showing for this wine or should I say “an awful wine – don’t tell anyone about it!”, whilst treating yourself to a case!
Drink 2025 – 2030+
Stuart Rae, Buying Commercial Manager (Private Accounts), Berry Bros. & Rudd (February 2021)
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