EL Bernate de Exopto 2018

The 2018 El Bernate is a new single-vineyard white from an 85-year-old plot of Malvasía Riojana (Alarije), but Tom Puyaubert says there are some plants of Malvasía Rosada and Malvasía Castellana in San Vicente de la Sonsierra. The wine is also light to medium-bodied with 12.5% alcohol and very good freshness but (yet) without the complexity of the Horizonte de Exopto blend. It fermented with indigenous yeasts in concrete egg, where it matured for one year. The wine is clean, open and subtle (it's not a very aromatic variety despite its name) with notes of white fruit and flowers, young and fruit driven given the absence of oak. 1,200 bottles were filled in September 2019.

Three types of Malvasía - Riojana, Rosada and Castellana - are planted in this 0.5-hectare parcel at 400 metres in San Vicente de la Sonsierra. And the result is a revelation, made for the first time in 2018. Entirely unoaked, it's a pithy, mineral, floral delight with notes of honeysuckle and citrus fruit and superb palate length. 2022-28