2016 Picaro del Aguila Clarete
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Tasting notes
Extremely pale red. Pungent red berry, blood orange and floral aromas are complicated by smoky minerals and white pepper. Sappy and sharply focused on the palate, offering red currant, raspberry and floral pastille flavors braced by a spine of juicy acidity. Delivers a suave blend of power and finesse and finishes long and minerally, with resonating floral and red fruit notes. All whole clusters and fermented in large, neutral French oak vats; aged for 16 months in neutral French and American oak barrels.
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Average Score
Julia Harding MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Mainly Tempranillo. No malo. Looks rather simple in terms of packaging – except for the wax seal. Oak and seriousness on the nose. Like the 2011 , it tastes like a mature rioja. Great fun and very distinctive. Pure sweet fruit and oak ageing but still refreshing. (JR)
2016 is an extraordinary vintage for Dominio del Águila, and the 2016 Pícaro del Águila Clarete is their finest to date. Their flagship "clarete" is produced with a blend of white and red grapes (35% Tempranillo, 35% Albillo and the rest of mixed varieties). They recovered this ancestral style of wine in the zone of Aranda de Duero, produced with grapes from very old organically farmed vineyards where there are a lot of varieties mixed in the field (Garnacha, Bobal, Bruñal, Monastrell, Tempranillo Gris, other Albillos, Garnacha Blanca, Pirulés, Jaén, Moscatel, Malvasías...), and they all fermented together with Tempranillo and the white Albillo to create what they describe as "a wine that is not a rosé and has aromas of white and the spirit of a red." The clusters are pressed directly and the must settles in concrete in their ancient caves, then it ferments slowly (over eight to nine months) in oak barrels, where the wine matured for a total of 17 months. This is a wine that ages magnificently in bottle, and together with the rosé from López de Heredia (that technically is also a "clarete"), these are the two most characterful and best pink wines produced in Spain today. This 2016 in particular could be the freshest and closer to a white, with citrus notes and a vibrant palate, and the oak is better integrated than ever. 9,830 bottles and 190 magnums were filled in February 2018.
Organic blend of old-vine Tempranillo and Albillo. Fermented in barrel. Clarete is a traditional style of Ribera but rarely seen now. Pretty pale pink. Spicy, aromatic red fruit but there's stone fruit too, and pears. Firm, lightly tannic with some oak sweetness. Intense, deep and fresh, and very long. A very serious rosé that would be great at the table with its definite structure and creamy aftertaste. (JH)