Dominio del Águila - Ribera del Duero Gran Reserva 'Peñas Aladas' 2012

As a young student of enology, Jorge Monzón traveled to Burgundy. Despite not speaking a word of French or having any recommendations, let alone experience, he convinced Domaine La Romanée-Conti to take him on as an intern. His eagerness and desire to learn led him to shadow maître de chai, Bernard Noblet, observing all the steps he took to create the famed wines of this historic Domaine.

Returning to Ribera del Duero and his hometown of La Aguilera, Jorge worked a couple of years at Vega Sicilia, attempting to create a white wine to rival the estate’s reds before becoming the technical director at Arzuaga-Navarro. While working for others, Jorge began purchasing old vineyards around La Aguilera – parcels in danger of being ripped up and replaced with more productive clones of Tempranillo as well as “fashionable” Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Malbec. These undesirable vineyards were ancient, unproductive massale selections of Tempranillo mixed with a diverse range of other varieties, including a high proportion of white grapes – all “useless” in a region that prized extraction, production, and the everything new and shiny.

Jorge’s years at DRC only focused his vision and conviction that terruño and tradition matter. His vineyards, some planted before phylloxera, or right after it struck, were planted exactly as they had been for centuries – predominantly Tempranillo with a wide genetic diversity alongside Albillo, Tempranillo Gris, Cariñena, Garnacha, Bobal, Bruñal and others so obscure that they haven’t been identified yet. Ranging in age from 60-150+ years old, it is surprising that these vines survived at all considering the recent trends in Ribera del Duero.

With his wife, Isabel Rodero, Jorge founded Dominio del Águila in 2010, and they have expanded their vineyards to 66 hectares. Farming is certified organic and Isabel, an architect, supervised the renovation of three ancient cellars dating to the 15th century dug deep into the bedrock under the village. Natural yeast, whole cluster co-fermentations are the first step in the process with pigeage done by foot. After primary fermentation, the wines are placed in oak barrels for malo and aging. Their cold, subterranean cellars ensure that their wines’ evolution proceeds slowly, allowing for the development of greater complexity and nuance.

Dominio del Águila’s vineyards are all located around the village of La Aguilera – so in that sense, they are all village wines. They sell much of their fruit selecting the best for their wines.

Peña Aladas, or winged stones, refers to a tiny group of small, rocky vineyard plots well over 100 years old in age and surrounded by pine forests. Like old vineyards elsewhere in Spain, there is a mix of grape varieties. About 85% is planted to Tempranillo with the remainder a mix of Cariñena, Bruñal, Bobal, Albillo, Garnacha and others. These sites are picked by hand, and the fruit sees a natural yeast, co-fermentation in tank before racking into French oak barrels for 51 months of aging in the deep and cold cellars of Dominio del Águila.

"Probably the purest and most refined wine in the whole Ribera del Duero region, a jewel of balance and subtlety with a wonderfully persistent delicacy. The newest icon in Spain." - 98 Points, Decanter

"The 2012 Peñas Aladas Gran Reserva is the second vintage to be bottled of the single-vineyard wine produced with the grapes from one of the oldest vineyards in the village of La Aguilera. In reality, the grapes come from different small plots in the zone known as Peñas Aladas, at 870 to 890 meters in altitude in one of the cooler zones of the village. The topsoil is rich in sand on clay and limestone bedrock. As in all the other old vineyards, the field blend is dominated by Tempranillo, but there is a percentage of other grapes that are all picked and fermented together with full clusters and indigenous yeasts. Fermentation and malolactic are never hurried up, and the same goes for the élevage, which in this case lasted some 51 months and was in mostly French oak barrels of different sizes and ages. There is a volatile twist with a hint of oak that reminds me of varnish. It has a touch of rustic elegance, with a completely different character from Peñas Aladas, which is unusually fine for Ribera del Duero. This wine should develop and age for a very long time in bottle, polishing some of the edges and developing more complexity and depth. Sometimes wines with a long aging in oak need even more time in bottle, and it's not crazy to say that this wine still feels a little too young... Only 927 bottles and 42 magnums were filled in January 2017." - 95 Points, Wine Advocate

Producer: Dominio del Águila

Country: Spain

Region: Castilla y León

Varietal: Tempranillo, Albillo, Garnacha, Bobal

Appellation: Ribera del Duero

Vintage: 2012

Size: 750ml