Valenciso Cemento 2018

This enticingly packaged new red does what is says on the label and was fermented and aged in concrete. Spicy and understated with plenty of sappy intensity, lovely purity and layers of crunchy plum and black cherry fruit. A promising début. 2023-28

One of the particularities from Valenciso is that they started using concrete (cemento) for the fermentation if their wines right from the beginning in 1998. Now they release a 2018 Cemento, the first vintage of a young, juicy and fruit-driven wine with soft extraction, keeping the fruit and liveliness through aging the wine exclusively in concrete for two and a half years. It's juicy and ripe without excess at 14% alcohol, and it has a medium to full body, a gentle texture with fine tannins and very good freshness. 10,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2021.