Finca La Montesa 2019

Finca La Montesa from Palacios Remondo has soul and balance. Transparent ruby red colour. The nose offers candied strawberry, redcurrant, a touch of floral and pepper aromas. Juicy and lush on the dry and medium-bodied palate, with round tannins and a fresh acidity. Pure and velvety mouthfeel with intense flavours of crunchy red summer fruits, a surprising chalky minerality and rosemary undertones. Closes in a sweet fruity finish.

95% Grenache, 5% other traditional varietals. The fruit comes from vineyards in Eastern Rioja. The climate is the most arid, hot, windy and Mediterranean compared to the rest of Rioja. In a wild environment at high altitudes of 550 metres on Mount Yerga, where the traditional viticulture of Garnacha/Grenache is still the protagonist and symbol of their viticultural history. The vineyards have calcareous and clay-ferrous conglomerate soils, and are tended to using organic and natural agricultural practices.

Grapes are harvested by hand, discarding excessively ripe fruit. The grape must ferments with local yeast in stainless steel tanks. The resulting wine is left to age in (mainly) French and American oak barrels for 12 months. 

20% are new barrels, 30% Second fill barrels, 25% Third fill barrels and 25% Fourth fill barrels.

AWARDS & ACCOLADES

- 93 POINTS

 The quality/price champion 2018 La Montesa is now 100% Garnacha from organically farmed vineyards from the 100-hectare family property that gives the wine its name. It fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel vats and matured in barriques, 85% of them produced with French oak and the rest with American oak. It feels very young, and the oak is still present; and the American oak, which is spicy and smoky, with ashy incense and vanilla with some sweet undertones, gives it a character that brings back the character of the traditional wines from yesteryear in a very clean way. It has vibrant freshness and should develop nicely with a couple of years in bottle. It has great purity and typicity, less Mediterranean than the 2017, nicely textured, velvety. I think the breakthrough vintage for this wine was 2015. This has all the grapes that would have been used for the Propiedad label, which was not bottled separately in 2018. It carries the EU organic-farming label. It's quite impressive for the quantity they produce—700,000 bottles. They started bottling in April 2020 from a single master blend. I tasted one of the first bottles.

- 93 POINTS