2017 Rumbo al Norte

I was very much looking forward to tasting the 2017 Rumbo Al Norte from bottle, a wine I had tasted a number of times during its upbringing in a 1,400-liter oak foudre, as it comes form one of the most spectacular vineyards I know, not only in Gredos, but in the whole of the world! It's a 0.3-hectare plot in the zone known as La Breña within the village of Villanueva de Ávila, where the granite soils are very sandy and rich in quartz and gray silt and the wines have a rare combination of elegance and power as well as an ethereal quality with tons of energy and a texture that is like liquid granite. It was produced like the rest of the reds, with a long infusion with full clusters and indigenous yeasts in oak vats, then matured in a 1,400-liter oak vat for 14 months. This vineyard escaped the frost and hail of the vintage—it's one of the few that was really untouched—and this year, the wine is head and shoulders above the rest. It's complex and elegant, very Burgundian, stony, floral and spicy, and the good yields controlled the ripeness of the dry year. This is the vineyard that behaves better in warmer/drier years. The good news is that there are 1,656 bottles and 60 magnums of this—their largest production ever—and it was bottled in March 2019. Unfortunately, prices for this scarce bottling are skyrocketing. It was only a matter of time...