Dominio del Aguila - Ribera Del Duero Canta La Perdiz 2019

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Producer	Dominio del Aguila
Country	Spain
Region	Ribera Del Duero
Varietal	Tempranillo
Vintage	2019
Sku	12105203
Size	750ml

  

WA

98

Canta la Perdiz comes from a single vineyard located in the village of La Aguilera. This south-facing site is planted with ungrafted vines that date back well into the 19th century. As far as anyone can remember, this site has been maintained by replacing vines that had died with cuttings from neighboring vines. This vineyard has a unique soil – pale, sandy, and chalky limestone laid down in horizontal layers like slate. Each vintage is labeled to reflect the growing conditions of the particular year – the blue for a cool vintage, the fiery red for a warm one, and a more composed orange for a temperate vintage.

80% Tempranillo, 5% Brunal, 5% Albillo, 5% Bobal, 5% Carinena

"Aromas of black fruit and spice, with chalky tannins and beautiful mouthfeel. This is a wine marked by tension, power and elegance. Simply outstanding." - Indigo wine

One of the newest estates in Ribera del Duero, Dominio del Águila, was founded by Jorge Monzón and Isabel Rodero in 2010. Located in the village of La Aguilera, Jorge farms 30 hectares of vines organically with ongoing experiments with biodynamics. Like his neighbors, he relies primarily on the Tempranillo grape for his wines. Beyond that, all other similarities end.

At Dominio del Águila there is no Cabernet Sauvignon, no Merlot and certainly no Malbec or Petit Verdot, instead Jorge relies on Bobal, Garnacha, Tempranillo Gris and Albillo to add complexity to his wines. The vineyards are all over fifty years in age, and located on sandy and rocky clay soils. Jorge has acquired these plots over the last decade while working at Bodegas Arzuaga-Navarro which he departed in 2013 to work full time at his own estate. Before 2010 he sold his grapes to several high-profile neighbors. Proving the old adage that, "it takes a lot of beer to make good wine," Jorge also operates a microbrewery on the estate brewing beer entirely from local ingredients.

Jorge comes from a family with a long tradition of growing grapes and making wines. He has studied in Bordeaux and Burgundy and has worked at both Domaine Romanée-Conti & Vega Sicilia before joining Arzuaga. His studies and travels taught him several important things: the importance of organic farming, an appreciation of old-vines, a desire for elegance and transparency and all the skills necessary to combine these ideas to make remarkable wines.

Jorge and his wife Isabel, who is an architect, have renovated an ancient cellar in the village of La Aguilera dating to the 15th century. They installed concrete tanks for fermentation and placed a barrel room in the coldest part of the subterranean cellar. Natural yeast co-fermentations are the first step in the process with pigeage done by foot. After primary fermentation the wines are placed in French oak for malo and aging. With such cold temperatures in the barrel room the evolution of the finished wines is gradual allowing for the development of greater complexity.

I tasted two vintages of the single-vineyard Canta la Perdiz, from the vineyard that they consider to produce their most elegant red. The youngest of the two, the 2019 Canta la Perdiz was cropped from a warm and dry year, fermented with indigenous yeasts in concrete with full clusters and a slow malolactic in barrel (seven months) and then spent 35 months in French oak barrels. It has a very expressive nose that is open and immediate, with polished tannins and surprisingly integrated oak after such a long élevage. It's a vintage of pleasure and juiciness but with serious structure and depth, and it is very harmonious and balanced with fine-grained chalky tannins. It has 14.5% alcohol and a pH of 3.55 denoting good freshness. 1,847 bottles and 30 magnums produced. It was bottled in September 2022.