Estrecho Monastrell 2014

"Vintages have gone very fast and the 2014 Estrecho will be released at the end of 2016. I visited this sandy, tremendously dry Monastrell vineyard, "Estrecho de Pipa" with Pepe Mendoza and could see how the plants struggle to live in such poor soils and with the shortage of rain they've had in the region in the last few years. It's possible because the roots of the old vines must have gone very deep and are able to sustain the plant even in such conditions. Mendoza designed some square oak vats where this wine fermented quite softly, with some manual punching down of the cap. There was a post-fermentative maceration of some 15-18 days. The wine matured in used 500-liter French oak barrels for some 15 months. This is so insultingly young and undeveloped, with all the baby fat still to be rendered that it feels like an infanticide to drink it any time soon. It has a transparent ruby color and a transparency towards the fine sandy soils with an aristocratic, elegant twist. It feels terribly balanced and harmonious, even if the oak is a little too obvious at the moment and I think the oaking could be fine tuned. But having seen the vineyard and how the older vintages have developed in bottle I have no doubt this will make a superb bottle of Mediterranean Monastrell, even better if you have the patience to wait a year or two. This could very well be the finest Estrecho to date, very much in line with the superb 2010. 5,000 bottles were filled in March 2016."