2018 Pintia

100% Tinta de Toro (Tempranillo). Winemaker Gonzalo Iturriaga: ‘ I like the wine but the harvest in Toro is challenging because the grapes ripen too fast. Though 2018 was cooler than usual and therefore easier. It’s at 750 m elevation, between Rioja and Ribera with just 1,000 vines per hectare, all bush vines. The sandy soils mustn’t touch the fruit, otherwise it will burn it. The grapes get a little cold soak. Then there’s 10–30% malo in barrel. More US oak than in Rioja. There is much less gross-lees contact and stirring of them than in the past. They key point is the harvest date.’ They pick Toro first, then Rioja and then Ribera, which tends to start before the end of the Rioja harvest. According to Iturriaga, Toro used to be difficult to sell but now it’s their first new release to sell out. Very deep purplish crimson. Sweet and chocolatey start but with good savoury grunt underneath. Good energy and rather dry on the finish. Very Spanish! Some freshness rescues it from over-richness. (JR)

The 2018 Pintia comes from a cooler and wetter vintage when the grapes were picked between September 20th and October 7th, and it fermented in their new fermentation room where they feel they can be more precise. The wine still has 15% alcohol, with a pH of 3.82 and 4.6 grams of acidity. It had a shorter élevage this year and matured for 10 months in French and 18% American oak barrels, 81% of them new. The nose is very expressive, with bright cherry fruit, and the wine is fresher than the norm in the region, with integrated alcohol and oak, reflecting a very cool year, floral and perfumed. The palate is medium-bodied and reveals very fine and elegant tannins. This has to be one of the finest vintages of Pintia. 251,512 bottles, 14,144 half-bottles, 6,543 magnums and some larger formats produced. It was bottled in April 2020.

Brooding but fresh nose, with tarry blackberries and fresh blue fruit. Iron, wet stones, violets and a hint of mocha, too. Full-bodied, mineral and broad on the palate with a stony feel, though not heavy at all. A really elegant, nuanced and extremely poised Pintia that you can enjoy now and for the next decade. A really eclectic Pintia showing more elegance and calculation. Drink or hold.