2015 Valbuena No 5

Opaque garnet. Vibrant, finely detailed cherry liqueur, dark berry, exotic spice and floral qualities on the expressive nose, along with hints of mocha and incense. Stains the palate with sweet, penetrating red and dark fruit, violet pastille, chewing tobacco and spicecake flavors that pick up a vanilla flourish on the back half. Smoothly blends power and finesse and finishes on a youthfully tannic note, showing outstanding clarity and mineral-tinged persistence.

95% Tinto Fino, 5% Merlot. In 2015 Ribera del Duero suffered some of its hottest and driest weather conditions in decades. The old vineyards yielded highly concentrated fruit and small berries. Fermented with ambient yeasts. As always, Valbuena matures for three years in wood and two in the bottle before market release. This is the first Valbuena produced solely by Gonzalo Iturriaga, after succeeding Xavier Ausás as technical director of the winery. 173,673 bottles, 5,625 magnums. Very concentrated black fruit, powerful, a wine with an impact on the palate. It is a forceful style of Valbuena, broad, wide, with lots of ripe black fruit. The tannin is firm, I like the more robust character of this wine. It will continue to evolve for sure. Lots of flavour and a vintage that will keep for decades. It is an explosive, overwhelming style of wine. (FC)

The 2015 Valbuena, a red blend of mostly Tempranillo with some 5% Merlot, is released in the fifth year after the harvest. It's explosive and showy, with a complex nose that shows a mixture of flowers and wild herbs, balsamic touches and great nuance. This wine has gained in complexity since the 2010 vintage, where they implemented some changes that increased the expressivity and precision of this wine. The tannins are fine-grained and there is very good balance, and the warm conditions of the year have been absorbed well by the wine. Despite the natural conditions of the year, the wine follows the path of freshness of the 2010. 173,673 bottles, 5,625 magnums and some larger formats produced. It was bottled in June 2018.