2015 Pago Garduna Syrah
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Tasting notes
Youthful purple. Powerful aromas of dark berry and cherry preserves, exotic spices, vanilla and incense develop a smoky nuance as the wine stretches out. Fleshy, broad and appealingly sweet but surprisingly lithe as well, offering intense blackberry, boysenberry, licorice and spicecake flavors and a hint of candied flowers. Finishes seamless and impressively long, with an echo of florality, a hint of salty olive and youthfully firm tannins that add shape and solid grip. Aged for 17 months in new French oak barrels.
Critic scores
Average Score
James Suckling
Luis Gutiérrez, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
I love the deep, peppery and smoky nose of this ambitious, Spanish syrah. Great balance of ripe flavors and elegant tannins on the concentrated palate, then a cascade of berry character at the very long finish. Drink or hold.
The Syrah 2015 Pago la Garduña is the one bottling that tends to show more marked smoky and toasty notes, perhaps because the oak tends to accentuate the varietal notes. This is matured in 225-liter barriques, and perhaps larger containers would allow the variety to express itself with more freedom, as I find it a bit compressed when it ages in small barrels. It's structured, with round tannins and good volume. This is a wine that always gives me mixed feelings, as I feel it could be much better—perhaps it's a matter of waiting for the bottle. They produced 30 barrels, which filled 8,000 bottles and some larger formats. It was bottled in May 2017.