Alto de la Estrella 2019

The single-vineyard red 2019 Alto de la Estrella comes from a plot in the zone of Arrebatacapas at 1,080 meters in altitude on slate and quartz soils, a 1.3-hectare vineyard that is organically farmed and ripens slowly and late. The grapes were picked the first week of October at 14% alcohol and fermented with the natural yeasts and 20% full clusters in concrete, and then the wine was transferred to a 2,000-litre oak foudre, where it matured for 14 months. Curiously enough, this is the palest of the reds from 2019. The second palest is La Mira, the other wine from slate soils. 2019 is a year of more concentration and power, a warm and dry year, according to Soto "a more Côte-Rôtie vintage." They seem to have fine-tuned the handling of the vineyard, the highest-altitude vineyard in Cebreros, and it's starting to show its true dimension. It's a lot more refined than the 2018. I wonder if 2018 was still suffering from the terrible hail of 2017 that left the vineyard without a single grape or leaf. This is superb, what I expect from a vineyard like this. 2,500 bottles were filled in February 2021.