Dominio del Águila Peñas Aladas Gran Reserva 2016 is an extraordinary, elegant Ribera del Duero made from ancient field-blend vines, offering floral aromatics, silky texture, fine tannins and striking freshness. Deeply layered, perfectly balanced and built for decades of aging, it’s a refined, mineral-driven masterpiece with exceptional longevity.

The Wine Advocate | RP 100
Published: Jan 31, 2023
Drink: 2023-2040

The youth, freshness, balance and harmony of the 2016 Peñas Aladas Gran Reserva is gobsmacking. The wine is a little shy, insinuating, reticent and a little closed, and it feels younger than it is. It comes from a collection of small plots of some of the oldest vines in the village of La Aguilera in the lieu-dit, or "paraje," that names the wine, in a small valley surrounded by pine, holm and juniper trees, where there is a cold draft of air and the temperature is lower than in the rest of the village. The soils are sandy and intermixed with clay on a marl mother rock. The plants are mostly Tempranillo, but as they are very old vines, there's always a field blend of other varieties—Albillo Mayor, Monastrell, Garnacha, Bobal and Cariñena—all fermented together with full clusters that were foot trodden in concrete vats and indigenous yeasts. Malolactic was in barrel and lasted for 11 months, while the élevage was extended to a total of 55 months (almost five years!). After all this time in barrels, the wine is not oaky at all; it's floral and perfumed, elegant, nuanced and layered. The texture is silky, and it's medium-bodied, with moderate ripeness, 14% alcohol and very good freshness denoted by a pH of 3.41. It has fine tannins that make it nicely textured and fine-boned, with subtle minerality. This should be veeeeeery long lived, as it has the stuffing, all the ingredients and the balance between them to make old bones. Amazing juice. 3,591 bottles and 51 magnums were filled in April 2021.

At Dominio del Águila they are building an extension to their winery in the outskirts of La Aguilera, the hamlet of Aranda de Duero, where they have an impressive collection of old, head-pruned vineyards—35 hectares, all certified organic (like all their wines) vines averaging 100 years of age to produce their current 50,000 bottles with the idea to eventually reach 80,000 bottles. There is a new-single vineyard "clarete" rosé from Peñas Aladas in 2020, an ideal vintage that follows the style of the cool 2016, and they don't stop experimenting and searching for new ways.