La Vitoriana, La Vizcaina de Vinos, Bierzo, 2018

Name: La Vitoriana, La Vizcaina de Vinos, Bierzo
Brand: Raúl Pérez
Price: 159.53 GBP

Available Vintages

all 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

justerini & brooks tasting note

Limpid ruby red, La Vitoriana 2018 exhibits layers of red, brambly fruits with a trace of licorice spice and cherry stones on the palate. Intense and long with an almost sherbet-like, mouthwatering acidity, but it's all so finely measured and detailed - a lacy power with finely etched tannins and concentration without weight. The palate is left awash with fruits of the forest and crisp, sweet berries. One would be hard pushed to find equivalent quality wines at this point. Planted in 1881, La Vitoriana is still on Pie Franco rootstocks, which perhaps accounts for its wild, juicy acidity and enormous complexity, facing north at 600m elevation. This is the vineyard with the highest proportion of sand in the soil. Whole bunch fermented in large, open-top wooden fermenters with no temperature control and kept on the skins for up to 90 days before aging in 500L and 225L French casks, none new, for around 18 months.

critic reviews

95/100Josh Raynolds,Vinous

Vivid ruby. A highly complex bouquet evokes perfumed red and blue fruits, potpourri, incense and exotic spices, enlivened by a powerful mineral topnote. Impressively concentrated yet lively, offering palate-staining cherry, boysenberry, cola, lavender pastille and spicecake flavors that show excellent detail and minerally back-end cut. Finishes with polished, well-integrated tannins and superb, floral- and spice-driven persistence.

DRINKING WINDOW 2024 - 2034

date of review 06/2021

97/100Luis Gutierrez,Robert Parker Wine Advocate

This 2018 La Vizcaina La Vitoriana includes vines that were replanted in 2014/2015 with Bastardo (Merenzao or Trousseau), so the wine is more aromatic, more ethereal, perfumed and elegant, really impressive. This is the most aromatic and impressive; there is a conjunction of everything, the north-facing vineyards. It has impressive depth and expressiveness; it's wild but refined, explosive and more Burgundian than any of the la Vizcaina wines. This has character and attitude, light, power, energy, freshness and symmetry; it has a fine thread, lace-like, really impressive. In my head, Tom Jones started singing his famous song "Sex bomb, sex bomb..." This is an incredible wine at an incredible price point. 5,800 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2020, only five weeks before I tasted it, and the wine felt relaxed and expressive. Things can only get better with a little more time in bottle. This could very well be the finest vineyard from the project. It's a small paraje, and there are only six owners (Castro Ventosa, Vinos Valtuille and two or three small grape growers); there is a part that is abandoned, and part of it is also south facing. The whole cru could be between three and four hectares.

DRINKING WINDOW 2020 - 2028

date of review 06/2020