2013 Unico

Speaking as someone who has tasted many 2013 Bordeaux wines this year, at the 10 Years On point, this is an exceptional example of the vintage, nuanced, compex, light on its feet, singular and utterly delicious. This is what oyster shell salinity means in a wine, so savoury that it has edges of soy, soot, smoke, lightly smoked spice, fattening up to creme de cassis, blackberry pastille and liqourice through the mid palate, concentrated with huge length and grip, and a crushed rose petal finish. Just so good. Waves of flavour keep you glued to the glass. 33 year old vines, planted 2,222v/ha, up to 900 altitude. The ageing process is a thing of beauty also - Unico starts in barrel for the first year, then the blend begins before part of the wine is put back into barrel and other parts into larger casks. At the end of the second year they decide upon the final blend, and back into casks for another three years, racking once a year, then finally into bottle for 4.5 years before release, adding up to somewhere close to 10 years after harvest before it appears on the market (with the magnum version held back until 2015).

I had already tasted the 2013 Único from magnum in a vertical tasting of all the magnums ever produced and was quite impressed by it (and the still unreleased 2014 that should be available in 2024). 2013 saw a rainy harvest, and the wine is subtle, elegant and fresh, complex, silky and with precision. The wine matured in 225-liter barrels in an initial phase and then in 22,000-liter oak vats until it was bottled in June 2019. This year, the final blend was 97% Tinto Fino and 3% Cabernet Sauvignon with a little less alcohol, 14%, and a pH of 3.78 and 5.2 grams of acidity, fresh and balanced, more elegant and subtler. Único often transcends the character of the vintage and doesn't follow the norm in the region, and the 2013 is a good example of that. It was a very rainy and complicated vintage; they harvested quite quickly to avoid botrytis, and while other people waited for concentration, they did not, and their approach clearly paid back. It's aromatic and floral, less dense than the 2012, subtler, more expressive and more elegant. It's clean and fresh, tasty, with very fine tannins. It's a big surprise for the vintage and one of the finest Únicos in the last few years. 76,476 bottles, 3,658 magnums and some larger formats produced, the shortest crop since 2009.

97% Tempranillo, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon. For the first part of ageing they use 15–30% US oak and used oak can be 30–50% of all used. They have one sent of tanks for malo and others for ageing. Winemaker Gonzalo Iturriaga described 2013 as ‘a horrible vintage with plenty of rot’. The DO called it ‘normal’, their lowest ranking. They picked quite early and the wine is much more open than the 2012. They tried for finesse and complexity. The more structured lots always go into Único. Some wine goes back into used barrels and they use lots of US oak for this sort of vintage. In the third year of ageing they make another assemblage which goes into vat for three more years. They want to rack only once a year and may blend in up to 15% of other, younger vintages to refresh the blend. Then it goes into bottle for 4.5 years. Quite small production because of their strict selection. Iturriaga says he feels more responsible for this 2013 than his predecessor Xavier Ausàs, who oversaw it for only three years! Nose lacks the usual magic intensity of Único. A little tighter and less rich than usual but there’s a fantastic texture. More accessible than some and there is certainly the expected intensity of fruit though it’s currently a bit dry on the end. (JR)