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I had tasted the 2020 Pie Franco during its upbringing in barrel and couldn’t wait to taste the bottled version. The wine comes from the ungrafted Monastrell vines planted in 1942 by the current generation’s grandfather on a south-facing slope rich in limestone and gravels. In this dream vintage, they achieved a wine with 14.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.47 and almost five grams of tartaric acid per liter of wine. The wine matured in 500-liter oak barrels for 16 months. There is precision; it’s like laser cut, with symmetry and nuance, and it feels ethereal with lots of inner strength. It has the aromatic herbal notes but they are a lot subtler, and the wine is a lot more elegant and floral. The 2020s are wines of texture, silky, fine and elegant. This is the essence of the Mediterranean. Truly outstanding, world class, the best wine produced in the Mediterranean and the best wine from Casa Castillo ever. I was trying to find reminiscences with previous vintages, and it’s different from 2017 and 2018, maybe a mixture of the two, but overall the 2020s are unique and have a combination of Mediterranean character and freshness more intense than any other previous vintage. José María Vicente told me the only vintage that could be compared a little with the 2020 could be 2010. I’ve seen this wine evolve every year since the initial vintage of 1998 to reach world class. Bravo! 7,800 bottles were filled in February 2022.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 100 RP

The 2023 Pie Franco is serious, austere and shy, but it has a sense of harmony and refinement that makes it very attractive and a little mysterious. It has a very elegant and balanced palate with very fine tannins; you don’t notice that the grapes had a slightly faster ripening, and the tannins show a level of refinement similar to a slower-ripening year. It might be the cushion effect of the old ungrafted vines that make it quite homogeneous and consistent from vintage to vintage. There’s no trace of ripeness or excess here despite the south-facing exposition and the sandy soils, and the wine is very elegant and fine. The grapes are picked halfway through the harvest, so they already have the experience of the first half of the grapes from the property. It fermented with 25% to 30% full clusters and aged in foudre for 18 months, but the idea is to age this wine (and Las Gravas) for at least two years in foudre, in the style of the Riserva wines from Piamonte. It has good ripeness and 14.5% alcohol and terrific balance. 7,100 individually numbered bottles produced. It was bottled in July 2025.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 99 RPThe 2023 Pie Franco is 100% Monastrell from Jumilla, planted south-facing on calcareous sands. It opens with aromas of cherry, elderberry, white pepper, spices, rosehip and cigar leaf. The palate is intense, silky and smooth, with moderate freshness and juiciness supporting a defined flavor. A red with both nuance and energy, it carries a chalky compactness that frames its rustic purity. The foudre is imperceptible; the wine resolves with character true to its landscape.Vinous Media | 97 VM