Pingus 2018

I was really looking forward to the bottled version of the 2018 Pingus after a great showing of the cask sample last year. Part of the wine matured in 20,000-liter oak casks, so it's not all barrique. This is the first time they used the vats, and based on the results, Sisseck thinks in the future Pingus will be around 50% in oak vats. The Pingus vines were planted in 1929 in two different sectors of the village of La Horra, Barroso and San Cristobal and contain some 2% other varieties. The vineyards are certified organic and biodynamic and are manicured like few vineyards in Spain. The wine is subtle and harmonious, elegant and insinuating, with all the components in very good balance. This is precise and pure; Sisseck is thorough and meticulous, and the wine shows that precision. This follows the line of the 2016, showing very well even if it was bottled only one month before I tasted it. 9,300 bottles were filled in August 2020.. - Luis Gutiérrez. 

Very perfumed and aromatic with blackberry, cherry, blueberry and fresh flowers, such as violets. Full-bodied with a tight, clipped, fine-tannined structure and a long, focused finish. Refined and linear. Long. Drink after 2023.

People who've never tasted it imagine that Pingus is a big, overpowering Ribera, but that has never been true. Fully deserving of its status as one of Spain's and the world's greatest wines, it hails from 4.2 hectares of vines in La Horra, spread across two contrasting sub-zones - San Cristóbal and Barroso. There was no new wood at all on the 2018 - which has been the case since 2012 - and a move towards bigger oak containers for 40% of the wine. Subtle, elegant and effortlessly concentrated, it's scented and alluring, even as a young wine, with black cherry and raspberry fruit, a hint of sweet spice and granular tannins. Balanced, refined and very long on the palate. 2023-32

Amid all the hype about its price and cult status, it’s easy to forget that Pingus is also a magnificent expression of both Ribera del Duero in general and the estate’s tiny vineyard in particular: a seamless, satiny texture, with not a hair out of place; superb depth of pure mulberry flavour with subtle shadings of spice, but no feeling of excess; contained power – beautifully balanced with a seam of high-plateau freshness; gorgeous young, but years ahead of it. Biodynamic.