2018 Bodegas Vega-Sicilia Ribera del Duero Valbuena 5°

The 2018 Valbuena comes from a cooler vintage with good yields that required sorting and selecting in search of a happy and vertical version of Valbuena, pushing a little more and giving the wine a little more oak, especially American (5%). It was produced with 96% Tinto Fino and 4% Merlot that went through a three- to four-day cold soak and fermented with indigenous yeasts followed by malolactic in stainless steel. The élevage was in new and used 225-liter oak barrels and 21,000-liter oak vats. It has 14.5% alcohol and a pH of 3.8 and 4.78 grams of acidity (tartaric), so it's ripe and with mellow acidity that gives it a mellow mouthfeel. This is a very spicy vintage for Valbuena, getting closer to the style of Único (while at the same time I felt the 2018 Pintia from Toro was getting closer to the aromatics of some vintages of Valbuena, like 2010). It was a late-ripening year with a tendency toward freshness in the wines. The palate is medium to full-bodied, with very fine tannins that made the wine nicely textured and very elegant. There is a lot of regularity in the Valbuena of the last few years, here with more tension and freshness of the 2017, a little more balsamic even. 180,580 bottles, 5,528 magnums and some larger formats produced. It was bottled in May 2021.

96% Tinto Fino (Tempranillo), 4% Merlot. Winemaker Gonzalo Iturriaga: ‘I love this wine. It’s an iron fist in a velvet glove. But in 2018 you needed great soil like we have. Valbuena is a great expression of our terroir: power and the vintage. (The last year they made a Valbuena 3°, aged for 3 rather than 5 years, was 1988.) 2018 was a bit rainy with oidium but the berries were really crunchy and elegant.’ Just 15 days cuvage with local yeast. They used US or French oak for each lot, though it is vintage-dependent. Normally US 15–30% and French for the rest with about 65% new. Valbuena contains 3–6% Merlot and is made in big vats. After the second year of ageing all the lots are blended together. Iturriaga admitted, ‘I prefer this wine to my kids – especially now that they’re 13 and 14 – worse than a vintage like 2022!’ Fantastic freshness. Really round and glorious and direct. Just a hint of port (same river!) but the freshness compensates. Beautiful texture. Long and seductive. Mountain intensity with some meatiness. Very long.

Includes 4% Merlot. Much deeper, blacker crimson than most. Earthier and more complex nose than most with lots of oak-aged lift. Gosh this is pretty gorgeous! So complete and detailed. Difficult to spit … Bone-dry finish after richness on the palate. (JR)