The 2016 Macán is a standout vintage—many say it’s the best yet. Made entirely from Tempranillo and crafted in the new winery with upgraded fermentation and aging techniques, it’s a wine that hits the sweet spot between power and elegance. Expect rich red fruit, spice, and a smooth, fresh finish that keeps you coming back for another sip. It’s polished, deep, and full of character, showing what careful winemaking and a great vintage can do.

The Wine Advocate | RP 94+
Published: Dec 30, 2020
Drink: 2020-2028

The 2016 Macan saw a new vinification by plot with the introduction of their new fermentation room. The Tempranillo came from selected vineyards from their 92 hectares; it fermented in oak vats and matured in 4,000-liter and barriques (50/50) for some 16 months and was kept in bottle for three years before being released. They think this 2016 is finally the style they were looking for, a wine with density and freshness. 2016 was the first year they vinified and aged from start to finish in the new winery, and they believe that gave them better control over the fermentations. 2016 is a year with more freshness than 2015, and they are trying to achieve wines with more tension and less power and oak than in the beginning. This could very well be the finest vintage of Macan so far. The grapes were picked between September 17th and October 3rd. 87,792 bottles, 2,570 magnums and some larger formats were produced. The wine was bottled in September 2018. 

Jamessuckling.com | JS 93
Published: Sep 12, 2020

Sweet-berry, lavender and blueberry aromas follow through to a full body with round, juicy tannins and a flavorful finish. A little hard now. Try after 2021.

Decanter | D 92
Published: Apr 9, 2019
Drink: 2021-2025

This is the first Macán, the top wine from this project, to be made in the newly completed winery. Oak usage is being toned down to the great benefit of the wine: fermentation is in large wood and ageing takes place in 95% French oak and 5% American oak. 50% of this is new wood and 25% is foudre rather than barrel. The wine then spends 30 months in bottle. It’s a young wine en route to something special. It has fine cedar and redcurrant aromatics, while the palate is bright with savoury, spicy black fruits and firm, young tannins. A fresh, very promising wine that's bound to improve.
Closure: Cork
Alcohol: 15.00%
Body: Full
Grapes: Tempranillo

Jancisrobinson.com | JR 18.5
Published: Jul 25, 2020
Drink: 2020-2030

100% Tempranillo from a fantastic vintage in Rioja, with easily workable, very healthy grapes. Ageing of 16 months in casks and barrels looking for light roast and great finesse, 30 months in the bottle.
Let me be resounding just for this once: 2016 is the best vintage of Macán so far. Definitely. It is a spicy wine, tamed by the foudre, with a degree of structure and aromatic depth from the barrel. It has a lot of flavour, freshness, salinity; mouth-watering. It is a deep wine, with fully melted tannins, lots of wild red fruit. It grows in the glass, in a subtle style but with flavour. It has the purity and elegance of those somewhat addictive wines, the kind you always want to smell and taste over and over again.

Temposvegasicilia.com

The harmony of beauty

Macán emerged from the bowels of La Rioja. A wine of yesteryear and today that respects the most authentic and typical style of a prestigious region.

A wine that searches for harmony by turning to its roots. The nature of its origins gives it a special elegance, a lingering mark, wrapping it in an unforgettable balance of sensitivity and expressivity.

Red wine wholly made using the Tempranillo variety. After the alcoholic fermentation, the malolactic process is carried out in barrels and in tanks. The ageing takes place in extrafine and fine grain French wood, the majority in new barrels and the rest in one-wine barrels. It remains in wood for 15 months and then in bottles until it is sold.

Macán and Macán Clásico are the joint vision that two great names of the wine world, Rothschild and Vega Sicilia, have of La Rioja. They are very elegant wines, where the harmony of their aromas and flavours show the authenticity of the land from where they come and its capacity to produce great wines.

Macán lurks rather more in the background, it will have to be time that shapes its great elegance backed by the silkiness of velvety tannins. Wine with a great capacity for ageing than its junior partner and noted for its great minerality.

Its co-existence is due to the desire to preserve the Bordeaux tradition to produce a first and second wine. Both always coexist and are treated exactly the same from the wine to the classification tasting. The different batches of wine of the vintage are then separated, with the two wines being considered individually and showing the differences between them.

2016 Description
Macán is a modern and very personal take on the premium quality and highly expressive wines of the DOCa Rioja. It is a commitment to fineness, elegance, complexity and power. And it is the flagship of Bodegas Benjamin de Rothschild & Vega Sicilia, the project launched by Tempos Vega Sicilia and the Compagnie
Vinicole Baron Edmond de Rothschild in 2004.

2009 was the first vintage released on the market, and this 2016 Macán endorses the work achieved over these years. Knowledge, effort, patience and a spirit of constant improvement have boosted the growth of a project that currently resides on a 98-hectare estate of high-quality vineyards and cutting-edge production facilities that fuse technology, tradition and innovation.

Macán is made only from grapes of the Tempranillo variety, from a meticulous selection of mature plots found on high terraces with poor gravelly soils of a loamy-calcareous nature.

During fermentation, in the winery´s first year, the extraction was very precise and the evolution of the oak lead to a better blending in the ageing phase, which took place in barrels (50 % new) of French origin and a 4,000-litre Foudre for sixteen months.

Macán 2016 is the consolidation of the sought-after style. It is a wine with density, but at the same time, it is fresh, concise and deep.

General information
Alcohol by volume 14.5 %
Variety Tempranillo
Average age of vineyard 36 years
Vineyard surface area 102 ha
Planting density 3,333 plants/ha
Altitude 500 m
Yield 3,700 Kg/ha - 25 Hl/ha
Harvest Manual in 12 kg boxes from September 17th to October 3rd