Olivier Riviere El Cadastro 2014 / 750 ml.

The 2013 was not produced, so we jumped to the 2014 Viñas del Cadastro, an old-vine cuvée with some varieties mixed in the field together with the Tempranillo, mostly some Garnacha, but also some isolated plants of Bobal, Garnacha Tintorera or other varieties. This is a ‘domaine’ wine, produced with grapes from his own vineyards, including the grapes from his flagship vineyard El Quemado in the years where it’s not bottled. There is a lot more depth and complexity here; it’s not heavy at all and it’s very balanced, and it feels like a very good vintage for this wine. It was produced with extremely low yields, some 1,500 kilos of grapes from hectare, but it doesn’t have the astringency you often find in very low yields; the vines seem to have achieved very good balance. It combines floral notes with some red and black wild berries and just a spicy twist. The wine opens up nicely with time in the glass. The tannins are very fine with the subtle austerity from the stony, deep gravel soils, coming through as extremely elegant and definitively fresher than 2012, with the alcohol pretty integrated despite having some 14.5% by volume. This is a superb Arlanza, by far the best wine I know from the small appellation. This isn’t cheap, but for the quality, it still represents very good value. 6,000 bottles were filled in September 2016.