Wines (24 View)

90pts- James Suckling:
A straightforward cabernet with medium body, light tannins and a currant and berry finish. Easy. Drink now.
Excellent to be paired with spicy roast beef chicken and duck. Also pairs well with strong cheeses like blue cheese and cheddar.
Aromas of plum and berries, with notes of licorice. Flavors of ripe cassis, blackberries and chocolate. Hint of toasted flavors that please the palate.

Winemaker Notes:
Purple-colored, the nose offers up plum and black cherry notes with a touch of black pepper. The palate is soft and round with ripe, saturated berry flavors. Finishes spicy and full with chewy tannins.
Ideal to serve with cheeses, red meats, mushrooms, stew, and the typical Argentine "asado".

La Storia Merlot is and has been consistently fine example of the ability of this classic Bordeaux variety to make solid, tasty and age worthy wines. The main aromas and flavors are of dark cherry, plums, a bit of black licorice and herbs. The new oak barrels contribute a touch of vanilla, brown sugar, cocoa dust and toast. On the mouth the wine is soft and viscous, balancing the acidity and the tannins well for such a young wine. The finish is long and soft with suggestion of sweetness backed by ripe tannins. This wine will age well and will reward your patience if stored well in the next 3-6 years.

Dry

This is a Sauvignon Blanc where only the juices with the most verve make the cut. Nuances of lifted white floral tones, creamy roundness, and exquisite minerality on the mid-palate make for our most exciting Josephine Sauvignon Blanc to date. - Winery

Floral and spice notes waft through the juicy flavors of red apple, tangerine zest and honeydew melon on display in this sleek white, with a light, pleasing plumpness on the palate. Salty finish. Hondarrabi Zuri and Hondarrabi Beltza.

Next to rose, there is no other wine that can turn down the summer heat like Txakoli. It’s not just a pleasure we indulge in when it’s hot outside; it’s essential. If given the choice between our air conditioner and Txakoli, we’d take the Txakoli! - PJ

The Txueka family is one of the most historic and important in Getaria. Iñaki Txueka was the leader of the movement to revitalize Txacoli from Getaria, beginning in 1980. In 1989, he was a leader in founding D.O. Getariako Txakolina. The family has been working in this zone for centuries, proven by documentation from Txomin Etxaniz dating back to 1649.

100% Hondarrabi Beltza. Harvest is done by hand and transported to the winery in 20 kg boxes. At the winery the grapes undergo further selection. This is followed by rose vinification at controlled temperature. Mature the skin with the juice between 12-15 hours , pneumatic pressing in an inert atmosphere, the fermenting at a controlled temperature in stainless steel tanks. Maceration occurs between 8 to 10 hours before pressing. Temperature controlled fermentation. The winery performs selection of the grapes for only the healthiest bunches. The grapes are cold macerated for 15 hours followed by destemming and a closed pneumatic press. Temperature controlled fermentation by selected indigenous yeast. 6 months in stainless steel sur lie, with battonage.

Organic

The Cabernet Sauvignon Ungrafted Gravel Soil hails from Isla de Maipo, aged 12 month in used barrels. Light purple in hue, the mild nose offers blackcurrant and cherry soft piracine notes. Terse with polished, slightly reactive, finely grained tannins and a flavorful juicy finish. A nuanced and lively style.

#37 On The Wine Spectator's Top 100 Wines Of 2024!

92 points Wine Spectator
The subtle influence of new oak accents this red's cherry, blackberry, iron and tar flavors. Vibrant and dense, with a fresh, energetic finish, showing excellent balance. Best from 2026 through 2038.

"The millennial Unico was tasted twice in January and June 2012. It has a Bordeaux- inspired bouquet that demonstrates more austerity than the 2004 with herbaceous notes infusing the brambly black fruit: smoke, forest floor, wild mint and cedar. The palate is medium-bodied with bright blackberry, strawberry and Morello on the entry. It is extremely well balanced and more feminine than the nose suggests. There is also impressive tension and vivacity towards the finish. There is great backbone here, a solid and obdurate Unico at the moment, but it will surely mellow in bottle. 108,536 bottles produced. Drink 2018-2030+." 93pts WA

"Moving on to the big guns, the 2004 Unico is truly spectacular, in line with the 1970 and 1994. It?????s a blend of 87% Tempranillo and 13% Cabernet Sauvignon. Unico has a unique long aging, in the case of the 2004, 15 months in 20,000-liter vats, 25 month in new barrels, 17 months in used barrels and a further 26 months in the big oak vats. It has complex notes of tobacco, cedar wood and blackberries, and shows very good balance between power and elegance as well as perfect ripeness. It has a similar profile to the 1994, but there?????s ten years difference in experience and technical knowledge. There is nuance; there is detail, filigree, balance, harmony and complexity. There is a fine texture. In short, it is a great, world-class wine, a superb vintage for Unico. 87,500 bottles, 2,229 magnums, 150 double magnums and 5 Imperials were filled with this extraordinary wine. This is approachable now, but it?????s a shame to drink so soon. It will age for a very long time, as it has the balance and harmony to do so, and it will develop more complexity with time. Drink 2016-2029. But if the single harvest Unico is fantastic, the multi-vintage blend could be even better as it also plays with the benefit of extra aging time." 97pts WA

96 pts Wine Advocate
The Unico released in 2021, 10 years after the harvest, is the 2011 Unico, selected from 40 of their 210 hectares of vineyards. 2011 is a concentrated and ripe vintage, and they selected 95% Tinto Fino (Tempranillo) and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon that were cooled in a cold room for 24 hours before being sorted; the bunches and grapes macerated at 9 to 10 degrees Celsius for three to four days, and then it was inoculated with a pied de cuve to ferment with pumping overs. Malolactic was in stainless steel, and the wine was put through a long aging, 10 years between oak and bottle, using new and used French and American oak barrels and 20,000-liter oak vats. For Vega Sicilia, 2011 was a fresher year than 2010, not the common idea about those vintages in Ribera del Duero. The wine has a developed nose with some notes of ripe black fruit, meat and underbrush, somewhat herbal and perfumed. There is something about the nose of the Unicos that I cannot quite describe but is quite distinct, and it's in this vintage and also in the Reserva Especial.

96 pts Wine Advocate
The 2012 Único is released 10 years after the harvest. They produced it with the grapes from 40 of the 210 hectares of vineyards they have, with a total of 55 separate plots and 19 different soils. It's mostly 95% Tinto Fino (Tempranillo) and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon grapes that are cooled down for 24 hours and then fermented in oak vats with indigenous yeasts. Malolactic fermentation was in stainless steel and the aging in 225-liter oak barrels and 20,000-liter oak vats for a long time as this was bottled in June 2018. 2012 is a concentrated year, warm and dry with some rain at the end of September that helped the end of the ripening process of healthy grapes with lots of color and ripe tannins. The wine has a ripe nose, with intoxicating notes of black fruit, fresh meat and blood, a spicy touch from the American oak and an earthy twist. It's a voluptuous and decadent vintage for Vega Sicilia, for those that favor years like 2006, a bit atypical, or 1999.

97 points James Suckling
Berry, smoke, violet and sandalwood aromas follow through to a full, layered palate that shows super polished tannins that are caressing and long. It’s tight and very long. Give it two or three years to soften. Drink after 2023.

97 points Wine Advocate
I had already tasted the 2013 ??nico from magnum in a vertical tasting of all the magnums ever produced and was quite impressed by it (and the still unreleased 2014 that should be available in 2024). 2013 saw a rainy harvest, and the wine is subtle, elegant and fresh, complex, silky and with precision. The wine matured in 225-liter barrels in an initial phase and then in 22,000-liter oak vats until it was bottled in June 2019. This year, the final blend was 97% Tinto Fino and 3% Cabernet Sauvignon with a little less alcohol, 14%, and a pH of 3.78 and 5.2 grams of acidity, fresh and balanced, more elegant and subtler. ??nico often transcends the character of the vintage and doesn't follow the norm in the region, and the 2013 is a good example of that. It was a very rainy and complicated vintage; they harvested quite quickly to avoid botrytis, and while other people waited for concentration, they did not, and their approach clearly paid back. It's aromatic and floral, less dense than the 2012, subtler, more expressive and more elegant. It's clean and fresh, tasty, with very fine tannins. It's a big surprise for the vintage and one of the finest ??nicos in the last few years. 76,476 bottles, 3,658 magnums and some larger formats produced, the shortest crop since 2009.

98 points Wine Advocate
The 2014 ??nico was produced with grapes from 40 hectares of vines selected from the 210 hectares the winery has. The grapes were picked between September 20th and October 3rd, and the blend was 94% Tinto Fino and 6% Cabernet Sauvignon. It fermented in oak vats with indigenous yeasts, with malolactic in stainless steel. The first part of the aging was in 225-liter barrels and the second one in 20,000-liter oak vats, and the ??levage lasts 10 years between oak and bottle. It's a year that combines power and elegance; it's concentrated but has subtleness. I had a unique opportunity to taste it from magnum one year ago and was truly impressed. This tasting was consistent with those sensations. 2014 was a good vintage in the zone, a year with good rain and a big crop, not as powerful as 2012 or 2015 but a year with finesse. The wine feels very balanced, lower in alcohol and with integrated oak, crunchy, fresh and still young. It feels quite classical; it's fine-boned, elegant but also powerful, more like the ??nicos from yesteryear. It has to be one of the finest vintages of recent times. It has 14% alcohol, a pH of 3.85 and five grams of acidity measured in tartaric acid per liter of wine. One of the largest vintages of ??nico, 104,606 bottles, 3,612 magnums, 356 double magnums, 50 imperials and five Salmanazars were produced. It was bottled in June 2020. It seems like years ending in four?????94, 2004, 2014 (but not 84, that was not produced)?????are very good here. We'll have to wait and see about the 2024...