Bodegas Pintia, Toro Red 2017
|
96
Wine Enthusiast
This dark-garnet-colored wine has aromas of black cherry, black currant, sage and black-olive paste. It is smooth on impact, with flavors of blackberry, cassis, coffee bean, dark chocolate and clove. Forceful tannins slowly peel away to reveal a lingering pomegranate and chocolate finish. Drink through 2042.
Lots of spices and bright fruit for such a ripe, hot vintage. Some orange-peel undertones. Full-bodied and layered with beautiful fruit and length. Really nicely done. Another two or three years will soften it.
Vega Sicilia has 110ha in Toro; 72% of the vines on their own rootstocks (a feature of Toro’s phylloxera-resistant soils). Inky colour, with exuberant aromas of blackberries, cranberries and cedar. The palate is all about power, balanced by fine freshness. The dark fruits are overload by black pepper and cumin spices. They are easing back the oak: 35% of the malolactic is in barrel. Only 20% of the ageing is in American oak, the rest French.
Toro (almost) didn’t suffer the frost of 2017 that decimated Ribera del Duero, and in that early harvest, the grapes for the 2017 Pintia were picked between September 6th and 17th trying to keep the freshness and acidity. They also did a softer extraction, reduced the percentage of wine that went through malolactic in barrel and used less American oak for the élevage, trying to achieve a more elegant wine. Still the wine is ripe, juicy, round and powerful at 15% alcohol, with a mellow palate with a pH of 3.9 and 4.5 grams of acidity. The wine matured in new and used oak barrels for 12 months. It feels quite fresh and harmonious, not showing any heat, not as fresh and atypical as 2016. It keeps the poise and the balance and has abundant but fine tannins. These wines repay time in bottle, and even if approachable now, it should get better with time. It’s like a refined version of the 2015. A triumph over the adverse conditions of the year. 204,240 bottles, 6,720 magnums and some larger formats produced. It was bottled in May 2019.
|
|
|
|
Bodegas Pintia, Toro Red 2018
|
95+
Wine Advocate
The 2018 Pintia comes from a cooler and wetter vintage when the grapes were picked between September 20th and October 7th, and it fermented in their new fermentation room where they feel they can be more precise. The wine still has 15% alcohol, with a pH of 3.82 and 4.6 grams of acidity. It had a shorter élevage this year and matured for 10 months in French and 18% American oak barrels, 81% of them new. The nose is very expressive, with bright cherry fruit, and the wine is fresher than the norm in the region, with integrated alcohol and oak, reflecting a very cool year, floral and perfumed. The palate is medium-bodied and reveals very fine and elegant tannins. This has to be one of the finest vintages of Pintia. 251,512 bottles, 14,144 half-bottles, 6,543 magnums and some larger formats produced. It was bottled in April 2020.
|
|
|
|
Bodegas Pintia, Toro Red 2019
|
94
Wine Advocate
The wine released in 2024 is the 2019 Pintia, from a very dry year when they did a softer vinification and used some 15% stainless steel for the élevage to keep the fruit and freshness. It fermented in stainless steel and oak vats with indigenous yeasts. It’s a powerful year; the wine has 15% alcohol and is round and full-bodied. It’s a heady and ripe Pintia. They had to be careful with the harvest date, and they harvested early and quite quickly. Even though the wine is ripe and heady, with notes of grenadine and small ripe berries, it’s also exotic and spicy, quite showy, lush and full-bodied, with 2019 tannins. It’s a more powerful wine that is going to require patience. They produced 224,724 bottles, 6,587 magnums and some smaller and larger sizes. It was bottled in May 2021.
|
|
|
