Jose Gil El Fugas 2020

El Fugas is a new wine from this Briones-based bodega and is every bit as exciting as the other single vineyard releases. Sourced from a 135-year-old parcel of the same name in Valpierre, it's Tempranillo based with 30% Garnacha and white grapes. Spicy, chalky and intense, with nuanced oak, filigree tannins and a tangy, lingering finish. 2025-32

The 2020 El Fugas comes from a soft slope in the zone of Las Ventas de Valpierre in Briones, where the soils have more clay and limestone gravels, an ancient vineyard (they talk about 140 years!) that produced a round and gentle wine. It's a blend of Tempranillo with some 25% Garnacha and some whites that matured in a used 500-liter barrel that marked the wine with some toasty and cereal-like notes, a bit candied, making for a more commercial profile of wine—creamer, approachable and gentle. Unfortunately, they only had access to those grapes in 2020. One single 500-liter barrel filled some 680 bottles in September 2021.