2021 Las Iruelas

I have never seen an herbal and peppery nose in a wine from Las Iruelas like the 2021 Las Iruelas; more specifically, it has a pungent note redolent of the Basque chili pepper "piparra," with wild strawberries, white peppercorns and capers, reflecting a very cold year. It's the expression of the slatish soils in a cold Mediterranean environment in a cold year. It has a pale and more developed color, it's narrow, it makes you salivate and it's super aromatic and expressive, floral, delicate and ultra mineral; it smells like crushed stones. This is the only wine from the village of El Tiemblo, one of two on slate soils in 2021 and the only one on slate from 2022, as 2022 was the last vintage of El Reventón, the other wine from slate. This was bottled later; they kept it in concrete for four or five extra months because the wine was a little reduced. It should be very long lived. 2,657 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2023.

Intense and super-focused nose with reductive white sesame notes with dark minerals, iron, pine cones, bitter grapefruit and blood oranges. So intense yet weightless. The tannins are very firm and assertive, with a long, long finish. Drink or hold.