Okay, now they're really starting to turn out the hits with regularity. Feels poised and confident, while pointing down the barrel of black chocolate, black cherry, olive paste, liquorice and rosemary spice. I love where this wine is going, but it's going to take its own sweet time to get there. First vintage entirely in the new winery, and the first year where they stopped the malolactic in barrel, concentrating just on the 225l then the 4,000l vats. They also began incorporating the press wine at an earlier stage to give it more time to integrate (only the first press is ever used). Not easy for a new estate to stand out even with the Rothschild and Alvarez names attached, but this is starting to feel like an extremely serious wine to get to know. Drinking Window 2022 - 2042.
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Benjamin De Rothschild & Vega Sicilia Rioja Macan 2016 750ml
Okay, now they're really starting to turn out the hits with regularity. Feels poised and confident, while pointing down the barrel of black chocolate, black cherry, olive paste, liquorice and rosemary spice. I love where this wine is going, but it's going to take its own sweet time to get there. First vintage entirely in the new winery, and the first year where they stopped the malolactic in barrel, concentrating just on the 225l then the 4,000l vats. They also began incorporating the press wine at an earlier stage to give it more time to integrate (only the first press is ever used). Not easy for a new estate to stand out even with the Rothschild and Alvarez names attached, but this is starting to feel like an extremely serious wine to get to know. Drinking Window 2022 - 2042.
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Opaque ruby. A highly perfumed bouquet evokes black raspberry, cherry cola, potpourri and exotic spices, and smoky mineral and vanilla nuances build in the glass. Appealingly sweet, palate-coating red and blue fruit preserve, spicecake, mocha and candied lavender flavors show excellent depth as well as energy and back-end lift. Finishes impressively long, smoky and precise, with polished tannins adding framework and closing grip.
Rated 94 by Wine Advocate
The 2016 Macán saw a new vinification by plot with the introduction of their new fermentation room. The Tempranillo came from selected vineyards from their 92 hectares; it fermented in oak vats and matured in 4,000-liter and barriques (50/50) for some 16 months and was kept in bottle for three years before being released. They think this 2016 is finally the style they were looking for, a wine with density and freshness. 2016 was the first year they vinified and aged from start to finish in the new winery, and they believe that gave them better control over the fermentations. 2016 is a year with more freshness than 2015, and they are trying to achieve wines with more tension and less power and oak than in the beginning. This could very well be the finest vintage of Macán so far. The grapes were picked between September 17th and October 3rd. 87,792 bottles, 2,570 magnums and some larger formats were produced. The wine was bottled in September 2018. (Rated 94+)
Rated 93 by James Suckling
A very perfumed red with ultra fine and chewy tannins that coat the mouth and draw you down the linear line of this wine. Purple fruit, stones and blue fruit. Medium to full body. Better in 2021, but already beautiful. Drink now or hold.
Macán is made only from grapes of the Tempranillo variety, from a meticulous selection of mature plots found on high terraces with poor gravelly soils of a loamy-calcareous nature. During fermentation, in the winery´s first year, the extraction was very precise and the evolution of the oak lead to a better blending in the ageing phase, which took place in barrels (50 % new) of French origin and a 4,000-litre Foudre for sixteen months.