Source: jamessuckling.com. Issue Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2022 (JS-98)

This has a polished and complex nose of poached plums, dark cherries, tea leaves, graphite, milk chocolate and a touch of caramel. It?s medium-to full-bodied with firm yet creamy tannins. Caressing, seductive and ripe, but with underlying freshness. 97% tempranillo and 3% cabernet sauvignon. Tasted from magnum. The normal bottle will be released 2023 and the magnum in 2025. Try after 2023.

Source: The Wine Advocate, Published: Jan 31, 2023 (RP-97)

I had already tasted the 2013 ?nico from magnum in a vertical tasting of all the magnums ever produced and was quite impressed by it (and the still unreleased 2014 that should be available in 2024). 2013 saw a rainy harvest, and the wine is subtle, elegant and fresh, complex, silky and with precision. The wine matured in 225-liter barrels in an initial phase and then in 22,000-liter oak vats until it was bottled in June 2019. This year, the final blend was 97% Tinto Fino and 3% Cabernet Sauvignon with a little less alcohol, 14%, and a pH of 3.78 and 5.2 grams of acidity, fresh and balanced, more elegant and subtler. ?nico often transcends the character of the vintage and doesn’t follow the norm in the region, and the 2013 is a good example of that. It was a very rainy and complicated vintage; they harvested quite quickly to avoid botrytis, and while other people waited for concentration, they did not, and their approach clearly paid back. It’s aromatic and floral, less dense than the 2012, subtler, more expressive and more elegant. It’s clean and fresh, tasty, with very fine tannins. It’s a big surprise for the vintage and one of the finest ?nicos in the last few years. 76,476 bottles, 3,658 magnums and some larger formats produced, the shortest crop since 2009.

Drink Date: 2023 – 2035

Source: Winemaker

It is the Vega Sicilia flagship. The qualities of the Tempranillo and cabernet sauvignon in different proportions are assembled to perfection in this wine. Each provides a differentiating factor that makes the wine great in every vintage.

The vines are grown on plots where the land is located at the point between the slopes down from the wasteland and the alluvial plain. The soil nearest the surface is made out of fine colluvial deposits from the hillside with small fragment of limestone. There is abundant quartz gravel deeper down in a sandy main soil. There are many angular limestone boulders on the surface.

Red wine made in controlled fermentation using native yeast in wooden tanks. Malolactic fermentation also takes place in wood.
After its fermentation, its goes through what is probably the world’s longest ageing of a red wine, almost 10 years between wood and bottle. The different stages take place in different types of barrel: American and French wood, new and used 225-litre barrels, 20,000-litre vats, each batch is what determines the type of wood and the time spent in each container.
After the stage in the wood, it is aged in the bottle to complete a long and complex ageing process. It will normally spend 6 years in wood and three in the bottle.
The different elements in its preparation are fine-tuned in the search of the master line that has guided the wine. ?nico remains true to a clear and well-defined style, with an inimitable character and style; elegance, strength, ageing capacity… A unique and timeless taste that has elevated it to among the aristocracy of the great classic wines.
It offers an infinite complexity that is gradually revealed, in every sip, the palate immensely silky and elegant, and has an ageing capacity that only a handful of wines in the world can claim.