Vega Sicilia Valbuena 2013

Robert Parker
This wine was re-tasted prior to this report with similar descriptors to my previous tasting for a report I published earlier this year and the score was the same. Cropped from an unusually cold and rainy vintage in which they will not bottle Único, the 2013 Valbuena is always released in its fifth year. It's mostly Tempranillo with 5% Merlot that was put through a three- to four-day cold soak in the oak vats, where it fermented with indigenous yeasts and was pumped over. It matured in new and used 225-liter French and American oak barriques and also in 20,000-liter oak vats, where the larger vessels respect the fruit, especially in a more fragile vintage like 2013. It's a very elegant and fresh Valbuena with a developed nose, quite classical with a fine texture, elegant tannins and a supple, long finish where the oak is still quite obvious. I liked it very much and consider it a triumph over the challenges of the year. 150,650 bottles and some larger formats were produced. It was bottled in June 2015.

Vinous
Brilliant ruby-red. A complex and highly expressive nose evokes fresh cherry, cassis, pipe tobacco and pungent flowers, and subtle vanilla and smoky mineral flourishes build in the glass. Sweet, penetrating and energetic on the palate, offering incisive dark berry, floral pastille and spicecake flavors that take a turn to finer red fruits on the back half. In a lithe, graceful style, showing superb finishing delineation and an impressively long, sweet, floral- and spice-laced finish. Note that there will be no Unico bottled from the 2013 vintage.

Bodegas Vega Sicilia er Spaniens svar på en Grand Cru og landets mest prestigefyldte vinhus. Vingården ligger i Ribera del Duero hvor Eloy Lacanda y Chaves plantede Bordeaux druerne Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot og Malbec side om side med den lokale Tempranillo i 1864. Vega Sicilias kultstatus begyndte dog først i starten af det 20. århundrede under ejerskab af Antonio Herrero. Siden da har vingården skiftet ejere flere gange indtil det endelig faldt i hænderne på de nuværende ejere; Alvarez familien i 1982. Opskriften på vinenes succes findes bl.a. i et nærmest hysterisk fokus på kvalitet der starter med uhyre lave høstudbytter, grøn høst og en ekstrem hård udvælgelse af druer under høsten – kun det bedste er godt nok. Vega Sicilia er især berømt for kultvinene Único, Único Reserva Especial og Valbuena 5.