2020 | Vega Sicilia | Unico Reserva Especial

Details

Red Wine: 2020 | Vega Sicilia | Unico Reserva Especial

This generous red offers rich flavors of plum, currant, licorice, tea and forest floor. Well-integrated tannins and orange peel acidity keep this focused, in a traditional style. Harmonious and long.

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Producer: Vega Sicilia

Ratings: WA | 98

Vintage: 2020

Size: 750ml

ABV: 14%

Varietal: Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon

Country/Region: Spain, Ribera del Duero

This generous red offers rich flavors of plum, currant, licorice, tea and forest floor. Well-integrated tannins and orange peel acidity keep this focused, in a traditional style. Harmonious and long.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: To be released in 2020, the NV nico Reserva Especial 2020 Release is a non-vintage blend of 59 barrels from 2008, 2009 and 2010, mostly Tempranillo with some Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine has been getting closer to the style of the nico, and the blend is from vintages very close to the current release of nico, but somehow this year I think the blend has added some complexity to the bottled wine, which has the heart and soul of the 2010 vintage. In fact, they told me they are keeping more wine to have some older vintages to blend for this Reserva Especial, because in the last few years, the wine has been a little too young for the style that it used to have in the past. This has finesse and some of the Burgundian style of the blends of yesteryear. 17,071 bottles and 214 magnums produced. It was bottled in June 2016.

Producer Information

Vega Sicilia is widely regarded as the greatest wine producer in Spain. The estate in Ribera del Duero is known for its dense, complex red wines made principally from the Tinto Fino (Tempranillo) grape variety. Its top wine, Unico, is one of Spain’s most expensive and sought-after wines. The Vega Sicilia estate covers around 1000 hectares (2470 acres) of which around 210ha (520 acres) is under vine. It has been in operation since 1864, long before the development of the appellation in which it resides, and the current wine styles date from the 1910s. Quality has become more consistent since the current owners, the Alvarez family, took over in 1982. The vineyards are planted to around 80 percent Tempranillo with the remainder taken up by Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and tiny amounts of Malbec. Yields are kept low, aided by green harvesting and painstaking grape selection. Winery operations are just as meticulous, with a complicated series of rackings from large barrels to barriques, mixing old and new oak and leading to wines that are capable of long aging. Vega Sicilia makes three cuves: Unico is the flagship, and the Reserva Especial is a blend of several of the best vintages. Traditionally they would be aged for 10 years or more before release, although this has been reduced in recent vintages. The junior wine, Valbuena, is made from younger vines, and is released after five years in American oak. Vega Sicilia also owns the nearby Bodegas Alin, which produces high-quality varietal Tempranillo wines for earlier consumption, as well as Bodegas Pintia in Toro, the recently constructed Deiva winery in Ras Baixas, and the Tokaj estate: Oremus. In addition, Macn is a Rioja estate created in 2009 as a joint-venture with the Compagnie Viticole Baron Edmond de Rothschild. It lies to the northeast of Samaniego and features a gravity-fed winery built over four levels.