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An ethereal and classic style with tertiary semi-dried plum, strawberry, cedar, mocha and coffee oak aromas and flavours, silky tannins and well-integrated zesty acidity. A magnificent wine that needs spicy lamb chops.Decanter | 97 DEC

The subtle and harmonious 2019 Selección Especial reflects a very complete and good vintage. It has to be one of the finest vintages for this wine. 2019 is a powerful vintage with balance and freshness. The grapes ripened thoroughly and developed a full set of aromas and flavors. It’s complex and nuanced, with abundant, fine-grained tannins and a long, dry and tasty finish. Selección applies to the vineyards but also the barrels and everything that contributes to this wine; it’s not only a selection of lots, which was the case before the 1994 vintage. 274,992 bottles produced. It was bottled between April and June 2022 after 26 months in barrel.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 95 RPFresh and demure nose with lots of cocoa powder, blackcurrants, blackberries and a hint of cigar and charcoal. Excellent depth and class here with a very juicy center palate. Medium to full body with a long and layered finish. Drink or hold.James Suckling | 95 JSBlack, somber and rich, this has the gravitas of old-fashioned Rioja. Selección Especial is made primarily from vineyards in the hills stretching from Villalba to Abalos, after the first cut from those lots goes to Torre Muga. These parcels, close to the mountains, are influenced by limestone in the soils, while two others, including a cool, north-facing parcel, add fruit from clay soils to the blend. That coolness shows up against the warm scent of rosemary and Mediterranean scrub, alongside this wine’s blueberry-skin tannins. Youthfully suppressed, it’s concentrated and substantial, suited to long aging. If you open it now, decant it long before dinner with a butterflied leg of lamb grilled with rosemary stalks.Wine & Spirits Magazine | 95 W&SThe 2019 Selección Especial blends Tempranillo, Garnacha and Graciano from vineyards on Montes Obarenes and the slopes of Sierra Cantabria. Aged for 26 months in the winery’s French oak barrels, this garnet wine offers a balsamic core with delicate cherry and elder notes, accompanied by hints of licorice. Dry, intense and creamy, the chalky flow lingers, concluding with a velvety, complex finish. This red stands out for its crystal-clear expression, showcasing a range of Rioja’s virtues.Vinous Media | 94 VMSavory aromas of forest floor, leather and tar transition to reveal a creamy core of crushed mulberry, cherry and wild strawberry fruit, red licorice and singed orange peel flavors. Shows muscle and focus, but this is elegant overall, marrying sculpted tannins with layers of flavor and length. Tempranillo, Garnacha, Mazuelo and Graciano. Drink now through 2034. 20,000 cases made, 6,000 cases imported.Wine Spectator | 92 WSDeep garnet to the eye, this wine has a nose of blackberry, green bell pepper and cedar chest. It is spicy at first sip, offering notes of eucalyptus, menthol and clove. Forceful tannins provide a backdrop for these spicy notes plus blackberry, black cherry, dark chocolate, violet and orange zest flavors that sail into a floral and cool herb finish. Wine Enthusiast | 90 WE

The 2019 Brega is more open and expressive, with gorgeous kirsch, herbes de Provence, pepper, and leather-like aromatics, and it’s full-bodied, has a broad, layered mouthfeel, plenty of tannins, and a great finish.Jeb Dunnuck | 95 JDA bold and ripe garnacha with some nicely baked red cherries and strawberries, with some white pepper spices. Nice texture on the medium- to full-bodied palate, showing close-knit, chalky tannins and a ripe, but juicy finish. Drink now.James Suckling | 92 JSThis dark-violet-colored wine has a bouquet of blackberry, purple plum, clove and vanilla. Silky smooth on the palate, it offers Mission fig, black-cherry, clove, eucalyptus and milk-chocolate flavors wrapped in a web of plush tannins that glide into a enduring finish.Wine Enthusiast | 92 WEA harmonious red, with fine, crisp tannins providing trim definition to concentrated flavors of black cherry reduction, Kalamata olive, wild herbs and milled pepper. Long and fresh on the palate, with mineral accents on the finish. Drink now through 2029. 1,650 cases made, 1,000 cases imported.Wine Spectator | 91 WSAn unashamedly big and powerful wine, appealing to those who prefer their wines rich and oaky. This is from the Jorge Ordónez-owned Bodegas Breca, from two very old plots planted in 1900 and 1918. With smoky bacon, woody spice and layers of red fruits, the wine is high in alcohol but not driven by it.Decanter | 90 DEC

The fruit for Safrà is grown biodynamically at 600m on sandy soils in Finca Els Corrals, mainly from 20- to 40-year-old Mandó vines harvested before fully mature, with about 15% of Garnacha Tintorera in the blend. Produced by owner Pablo Calatayud and winemaker Javier Revert, the wine was vinified in stainless steel using indigenous yeasts, with one third of the fruit in whole bunches. This was followed by six months’ maturation in earthenware jars. Sarah Jane Evans MW: Earthy, winey aromas – a clear expression of the variety. Refreshing notes of dark plum and cherry, with light citrus. Long, intense finish. An original. Christine Allen: Redcurrant, fresh cherry and high-tone florals on the nose. Lingering spiced fruit and a floral finish. A stunning example of what Valencia can do. Beth Willard: Enticing chalky, creamy milk chocolate and raspberry aromas. Pretty floral character, with rose petal, sweet fruit and ripe tannins. Very fresh and drinkable.Decanter | 95 DECThey consider 2020 Safrà the more balanced vintage to date, with the help of the Arcos structure, which makes it longer and more complex. It’s 70% Mandó and 30% Arcos that fermented in stainless steel vats with 30% full clusters and indigenous yeasts and matured in 2,600-liter tinaja for six months. It has 13% alcohol and a pH of 3.45. It’s juicy, floral, tasty and fresh, with very fine tannins and a long, focused finish. The combination of Mandó and Arcos works quite well; the blend is serious, with structure keeping the brightness. All of these wines are incredible values. 20,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in July 2021.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 94+ RP

2020 was a challenging year that gave them a lot of work in the vineyard, but it it paid off. The 2020 Laurel feels very elegant, balanced and fresh, a little lighter perhaps, with perfectly ripe tannins, a little in line with 2016 or 2013. It might be a little unusual for the house style or perhaps a slight change, as they are gradually going for softer vinifications; you don’t really need to extract in Priorat, because the wines are powerful enough on their own. It’s still extremely young and has a lactic touch (that blows off with a bit of time in the glass); it was only bottled at the end of May 2022, three months before I tasted it. Even if it’s the second wine here, it’s a wine that needs a little bit of time and improves in the bottle. Having said that, the 2020s feel more open, expressive and approachable than the 2019s, which are more tannic and powerful while the 2020s feel a little more Burgundian if you like. This has to be one of the finest vintages of Laurel so far. After some time in the glass, the aromatics of the Syrah (which was perhaps a little more this year, some 12% versus 8% in 2019) made an appearance—violets, smoked bacon. Daphne Glorian told me that everything was easy, that the wine was expressive and open from day one and that the fermentations were smooth. There are some 19,000 bottles of this.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 96 RP

The more modern wine in the portfolio is the 2020 Torre Muga, which has notes of toast, smoke, sesame seeds, smoky bacon, spices, herbs and ripe berries. It is a wine they started producing in 1991, and the change in style also influenced the quality approach and selection of vineyards, grapes and oak for the barrels that they later applied to other wines. It has a polished palate with very fine tannins, chalky and elegant. It’s a more approachable vintage, round, velvety and soft, though perhaps without the aging potential of 2021, but it’s very pleasant. It’s long. They didn’t bottle the 2020 from Aro, so some of those grapes might have finished in this bottle. It was bottled in December 2022.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 95 RP

I love the 2021 La Vizcaína La Vitoriana, where they use the westernmost part of the vineyard with more sand in the soils, mostly north facing. It’s a wine with a floral nose that is aromatic and perfumed, elegant but with clout, with concentration and power. They have been picking earlier and earlier, lowering the alcohol, and they feel more comfortable below 13%; they removed the rusticity and extraction, and the wine is more elegant than ever. It reminds me of the 2018, with similar a profile of freshness. They produced around 5,000 liters from the one+ hectare they have here.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 97 RP