Penalba Herraiz Aptus, Ribera del Duero Red 2019
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92
Wine Review Online
This wine is not about fireworks, but rather about purity of fruit, which it achieves at an extremely high level. I’ve written before (many times, but I’m not done) that young, modestly-oaked Tempranillo from Ribera del Duero is among the world’s most delicious and versatile wines, in addition to being the most transparent of all Spain’s renditions of its premier red variety—and a great value on top on all of that. This is an object lesson in everything you just read, and I encourage you to put my claims to the test by tasting this, with the promise that if you don’t like it (and can pass a lie detector test to that effect), I’ll come mow your lawn for the rest of the summer. Medium-bodied but with lots of fresh, dark-cherry fruit aromas and flavors, this is highly expressive, but fruit-driven in its expressiveness, with only wispy touches of spice and oak derived from the 8 months that this spent in barrique (or barrica, in Spanish). There is essentially no oak tannin to make the finish astringent, and just enough ripe, fine-grained grape tannin to offer grip in the finish and keeping this from seeming “grapey” or unstructured. This is undeniably delicious. I’d suggest you not even bother trying to fool a lie detector, but go for it if you wish; my mower is ready.
Michael Franz – August 24, 2021
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Penalba Herraiz Aptus, Ribera del Duero Red 2020
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91
Wine Enthusiast
Dark violet in the glass, this wine offers a nose of black currant and anisette. Flavors of black cherry and blackberry with notes of dark chocolate, coffee bean, clove and eucalyptus are framed by plush tannins that last into an enduring finish. Best Buy.
Biodynamically grown and aged for just 9 months in used barriques, this is a wine that’s evidently intended to display pure primary fruit — which it does, and brilliantly. To emphasize “pure primary fruit” as I have done here runs the risk of suggesting that the wine is simple (which it is not) or unstructured (which it is not). On the contrary, the wine is impressively complex despite its youthfulness, but the complexities are nuances in the fruit as grown in the vineyard rather than derived from cellar treatments. Moreover, the wine has very good acidity and tannic structure, but these components are so well integrated with the fruit’s character that they don’t come across as distinct elements unless one is tasting critically and trying to focus on them. In sum, this is utterly delicious young wine that should be credited for exactly those attributes — rather than being regarded as just “good” because it isn’t overly pushy or in need of a decade of cellaring.
2020 Aptus Ribera Del Duero- The 2020 Aptus is a nicely concentrated effort, with forward black fruit and chocolate flavors that a mingle well with dusty soil accents on the palate. Enjoy now. Drink 2023-2029.
The 2020 Aptus Tinto from Bodegas Peñalba Herraiz is produced from a cépages of ninety-five percent Tempranillo and the other five percent a mix of Garnacha. The 2020 vintage comes in at 14.5 percent octane this year and delivers a lovely, complex nose of red and black cherries, dark chocolate, cigar wrapper, a good base of soil and a nice framing of cedary new oak. On the palate the wine is deep, ripe and full-bodied, with a fine core of fruit, firm, buried tannins, good focus and a long, well-balanced and gently warm finish. This is a good bottle in the making, which I would love to have seen just a touch lower in alcohol, but that is the nature of global warming in Ribera del Duero these days. 2028-2055.
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