2010 Spain

‘La Faraona’ is a wine from a single parcel of vines on the highest hill in Corullon, Bierzo, scaling 855 metres. The vines are south-east facing and have an average age of 65 years. The wine is bottled without being filtered and this adds to its depth and character.

The nose is mineral but there is a note of damp heather and a leathery, animal character which provides a nice contrast with the up-front red fruit. The palate is very dense and concentrated which bodes well for those of a ‘hoarding’ persuasion as a couple of years in the cellar are certainly necessary if this wine is to offer-up its true expression and stomp, flamenco-style across your taste buds.
Nicholas Stewart - Wine Buying Department

Muga’s excellent 2010 is a blend of 75 percent Tempranillo, 20 percent Garnacha with the balance is shared between Graciano and Mazuelo. The wine has been generously aged for 24 months in a combination of French and American oak, none of which is new. An archetypical Muga nose, savoury and rich, with hints of crushed raspberry and black pepper, leads onto a concentrated mid-palate, toasty, generous and long, with chalky tannins providing impressive architectural support. 
Simon Field MW -  Wine Buyer

In the old days this 5.3 hectare vineyard was the source of the Grandes Anadas cuvee. A dense brooding oaky wine, with impressive Tempranillo definition and a beguiling finish which marries the sweet and the sour, this is ripe and powerful example with real potential for development.
(Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer, October 2011) The smallest and highest of Artadi's single vineyards, Montes El Carretil is marked by deep penetrating roots and a distinctive clay-sandstone soils. This Rioja wine is rich, energetic and dense, with very marked tannins at the moment and a fine mineraldriven finish. Notes of scorched earth, spice and black olive. A wine described by Juan Carlos Lopez, with no shortage of resonance, as ‘full of soul and life’. Sounds even better in Spanish…

The scenic south-east facing 7 hectare Valdeginés vineyard is located in the narrow corridor of the San Ginés Valley, a couple of miles from the winery in Laguardia. This Tempranillo wine is energetic and fruity, with marked notes of truffle, clove and chocolate. The wine has an almost Pinot Noir texture, velvety and plush, and then a fresh and satisfying finish.

2010 was an unusual vintage for Artadi, its profile marked by seasonal variations which are, it seems, becoming increasingly familiar in Europe, namely a very warm spring and autumn and a relatively lacklustre early summer period. After the cold winter of 2009-2010, with above average rain following in the milder spring, the early flowering of 2010 was well nourished and watered, just as well as later on there were real risks of hydric stress in the dog days of late August.

The conditions resulted in a longer than usual ripening season with grapes that were relatively ripe, with higher sugar levels than normal, lower levels of acidity and higher tannins. The structural integrity of the wines is very impressive and they do not lack for definition, mid-palate weight and tension on the finish.  These are, as ever, impeccable wines, which should drink earlier than the blockbuster 2009s.

(Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer)

Pagos Viejos is a continually evolving wine, its grapes sourced from the oldest and the best vines from this increasingly extensive estate. Grapes are also used from the single vineyards and one can detect their benevolent influence; ripeness from Poza, minerality from El Carretil and aromatics from the Valdeginés. The whole is more than the sum of the parts: a wine of incredible complexity and subtle nuance.

2010 was an unusual vintage for Artadi, its profile marked by seasonal variations which are, it seems, becoming increasingly familiar in Europe, namely a very warm spring and autumn and a relatively lacklustre early summer period. After the cold winter of 2009-2010, with above average rain following in the milder spring, the early flowering of 2010 was well nourished and watered, just as well as later on there were real risks of hydric stress in the dog days of late August.

The conditions resulted in a longer than usual ripening season with grapes that were relatively ripe, with higher sugar levels than normal, lower levels of acidity and higher tannins. The structural integrity of the wines is very impressive and they do not lack for definition, mid-palate weight and tension on the finish.  These are, as ever, impeccable wines, which should drink earlier than the blockbuster 2009s.

(Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer, October 2011)

Ungrafted vines from fantastically unpromising sandy single-vineyard soils are the source of one of Spain’s most exciting jewels, named, appropriately enough, after the pater familias of this very gifted family. 18 months in French oak has been worn relatively lightly with the cool elegant fruit already focused, taut tannins in sharp relief and natural high altitude acidity providing refreshing counterpoint. 
Simon Field MW - Wine Buyer

I’m a huge fan of this wine having enjoyed many back vintages over the last few years. The 2010 is a stupendous effort, a wine which comprises power, depth and concentrated fruit, all finely wrapped up with a sensational texture. Displaying aromas of forest fruits, allspice, and a sweet earthy character, the palate delivers a framework of refined oak and broad, ripe tannins. A mouth filling richness of flavour meets the mid-palate combining flavours of damson, crushed blackberries and balsamic, held in tension by a finite acidity. Layered and complex, I have great confidence this may even surpass the fantastic 2001 in 10 years’ time. Superb from magnum with a bright future ahead, recommended drinking from 2020 – 2045+
Chris Lamb, Private Account Manager

Valbuena 2010 has been aged for 31 months in a combination of cask and barrel, the latter of which are both French and American in provenance. Further bottle age before release has ensured that a latent harmony has been amplified, nurtured by Javier Ausás, whose winemaking is deferential above all to the what goes on in the vineyards,  now minutely divided into parcels, all of which are vinified separately. Nuance is all and power defers to elegance. 
The near opaque core cedes to a lively iridescent rim and a generous open nose which marries Asian spice and dark dark fruit….the palate is  more reserved than one would have thought, with dignified floral notes and very finely poised tannins underlining a near-Burgundian purity that is born of day-night temperature variations during the growing season and a clearly  Burgundian sensibility in the winery.
Simon Field MW - Spain Buyer

Bodega Contador was founded as recently as 1995, but has already become one of Rioja’s most respected wineries – thanks to its superb terroir and the brilliant winemaking skill of proprietor Benjamin Romeo. His first vintages (2004 and ’05) both garnered 100 points from the Wine Advocate. Benjamin’s winemaking is relatively modern, with individual plots vinified separately, choosing French over American oak. The results are extraordinary.

The nose is sumptuous, layered with rich red fruits, enveloped in spicy cassis, vanilla and white chocolate. A stunning palate follows – velveteen, dense and smooth, with masses of fruit. The finish is excellent, full of balanced power, with crunchy, long, fresh tannins. The wine spent 18 months in new French oak. This is a brilliant expression of pure Tempranillo.

The Reserva Especial, as its name indicates, is made only in the best years, its previous incarnations being 2009 and 2005. 2010 is a more feminine elegant style and therefore completely complementary to its forebears. The blend ,as usual, favours Tinto Fino over Cabernet Sauvignon, but with a little more of the latter ( 24%) than in the other cuvées. This, allied to a longer ageing in French barrel, imparts spicy richness and a black fruit foundation upon which is built the pleasing idiosyncratic characteristics of the property, among them herbs, spice and a distinctively savoury kick at the back of the palate. Most impressive.
Simon Field MW - Wine Buyer

Peter Sisseck, the consultant winemaker at Hacienda Monasterio, sees 2010 in the same vein as 2012 and 2008, that is to say as an elegant , ‘Atlantic’ vintage, a perceived virtue in such a climate and one which allows the wine full aromatic expression. A blend of 80% Tinto Fino and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, the wine has an attractive nose of violets and eucalypt and a palate which is soft and rich, courtesy, in no small measure, of the 20 month ageing in French oak.
Simon Field MW -  Wine Buyer

Bierzo's principal grape is the obscure, indigenous red variety Mencía. While Bierzo is a relatively new wine appellation (a DO since 1989), it has a wealth of very old vines, planted on extremely steep hillsides, and in this respect it much resembles the Priorat region. Alvaro Palacios, with his nephew Ricardo Perez (who also spent time in Bordeaux), established Descendientes de J. Palacios in 1998 in the village of Villafranca del Bierzo.

This is almost the definitive expression of Mencía, its vines perched on a stark vineyard of pure schist, its wine distinctively aromatic, with a Cabernet-Franc-like garrigue and lavender freshness at the front of the palate, then real dark fruit concentration, fine new-oak tannins providing real backbone and support to the generously ripe palate.

Deep and ancient soils now with the percentage of Garnacha increased to 80%. Dark, linear, extremely fresh and finely structured. Velvety and yet with ethereal charm and real presence.

Alvaro is a staunch defender of Garnacha, for him the archetypical and original Mediterranean variety, only replaced by Cariñena after the Civil War because the latter was seen as higher-yielding. Garnacha he describes as La Reina, the queen of all varieties, generous, soft and benevolent and, of course, completely devoid of caprice.  Clonal selection and deeply rooted old vines underwrite the quality here...mules till the soil as they always have done, and the high mineral content of the sub-soils ( zinc, aluminium and iron) lends definition and purity to the grapes, bolstered by high levels of citric acidity.

Attention to detail is evidenced in the winery too; Alvaro has built an underground barrel cellar which allows maturation in the most natural conditions possible. His philosophy of oak aging has evolved and he now uses larger barrels, his 2000 litre foudres similar in dimension and purpose to those of the other great Grenache citadel; Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Less oak influence translates into more expression of terroir, suitably deferential to the monastic heritage.
(Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer)

The 1945 vineyard now hosts a mini-museum in the modest barn-like building which doubles as an almost perfect location for tasting and lunch for pickers and visitors alike. The gentle sloping vines work hard beneath the surface, deep roots and exceptionally deep subsoil feeding the legend. The 2010 is still a little reticent on the nose, but the palate is already magisterial in its complexity, the purity of fruit at its core lending an almost ethereal character. The finish is long, finely etched and extremely persistent.

2010 was an unusual vintage for Artadi, its profile marked by seasonal variations which are, it seems, becoming increasingly familiar in Europe, namely a very warm spring and autumn and a relatively lacklustre early summer period. After the cold winter of 2009-2010, with above average rain following in the milder spring, the early flowering of 2010 was well nourished and watered, just as well as later on there were real risks of hydric stress in the dog days of late August.

The conditions resulted in a longer than usual ripening season with grapes that were relatively ripe, with higher sugar levels than normal, lower levels of acidity and higher tannins. The structural integrity of the wines is very impressive and they do not lack for definition, mid-palate weight and tension on the finish.  These are, as ever, impeccable wines, which should drink earlier than the blockbuster 2009s.

Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer, October 2011