Las paradas 2018

The ambitious 2018 Las Paradas comes in a heavy Burgundy bottle and retails in Spain for around 85€. It's an old-vine Garnacha from a 45-year-old head-pruned vineyard on a slope. It fermented in 500-liter oak barrels with indigenous yeasts and matured in those barrels for 18 months in a natural cave at 13 degrees Celsius. It has a translucent ruby color and a ripe nose with dark berry fruit, Mediterranean herbs and hints of wet slate. It's powerful, with a fine thread and grainy tannins, closer to a Priorat than a Garnacha from Gredos. It's ripe at 14.5% alcohol, concentrated and heady with pungent flavors and a warm finish. A Mediterranean Garnacha. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered in December 2020 into 1,200 bottles. - Luis Gutiérrez. 

Javier Gil Pejenaute spent 23 years working in Rioja, first with Rafael Palacios and then his brother Alvaro at the family winery of Palacios Remondo. Finally he set off on his own, in search of a site that unites wine and mountains. He found it in Campo de Borja where he has 7ha of Garnacha. This is his first release and it's a vivid, expressive beginning. The Garnacha fruit is succulent, laden with red berries and with mouthwatering freshness. One to watch. -  Sarah Jane Evans MW.

Aromas of dried raspberries, wild strawberries, cloves, dried thyme and sweet spices. Medium-to full-bodied with creamy tannins. Juicy and supple with a fruity, lightly peppery finish. Delicious now.