Valdelareina 2023

Made with Garnacha and 10% co-planted red and white grapes, this is the first release of an ambitious new red from Álvaro Palacios. Sourced from a 1.5-hectare parcel of 75-yearold vines on red soils over limestone, it's a plusher, denser wine than stablemate Quiñón de Valmira, with clove spice from 65% whole bunches, a ferrous undertone, lots of vibrancy and energy and flavours of orange peel, wild strawberry and pink grapefruit. 2026-35

There's a little more color in the new wine, the 2023 Quiñón de Valdelareina, than in the 2023 Quiñón de Valmira that I tasted next to it. If Valmira is quite shallow (20 centimeters or less!), the Valdelareina, which is higher in altitude in the zone of Las Mulgas (at the limit to Navarra at 650 meters), has a soil more like La Montesa, red and deeper that delivers riper grapes and voluptuous wines with more volume and weight. The vines are 90 years old. They used to buy the grapes (the zone is quite far away from the Alfaro village), but they have bought three small plots. The feeling is also of slightly higher ripeness and darker fruit, a little earthier and with a little more rusticity. The tannins are fine but do not quite reach those of its older sibling, with the clout and depth from the old vines. It was just bottled in January 2025. The price has not yet been set, but it should be around $300 in the US. - Luis Gutiérrez.