2012 Benjamin de Rothschild & Vega Sicilia Macan
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Tasting notes
(two-thirds new French oak) Bright purple. Intensely perfumed aromas of ripe, oak-spiced black and blue fruits, vanilla, incense and pungent flowers, along with smoky mineral and pipe tobacco notes. Broad, fleshy and sweet, offering pliant blueberry, cherry-vanilla and mocha flavors that firm up slowly on the back half. Rich yet energetic in character, displaying impressive finishing definition and smooth tannins that add closing grip to the wine's densely packed, sweet fruit.
Critic scores
Julia Harding MW, jancisrobinson.com
Luis Gutiérrez, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
The 2012s had somehow escaped me in my previous visit to Rioja, so I took the opportunity to taste them now so there is a reference about them in the database. I also had the chance to taste the 2012 Macán in the context of the 2013 and 2014 vintages, so it's good to provide context. 2012 was a dry and healthy vintage that produced ripe grapes. I'm glad I tasted it, and I think I saw it in a very good moment of its evolution, where the oak seems better integrated, still keeping its primary flavors, with very good balance and polished tannins but already developing some complexity and nuances. 54,889 bottles, 1,689 magnums and some larger formats produced. It was bottled in June 2014.
100% Tempranillo, 15-18 months in new French oak. Inky dark crimson with a blackish cast at the rim, rather like crushed mulberry. More spicy than the Clásico. And, if possible, even more fragrant – impressive to find an expressive wine when it is otherwise still so youthful. Tannins are much thicker here, in a way that I associate with oak influence. Very dry compact texture and far less open on the palate than on the nose. (JH)