Galia Le Dean 2015

One of two new, nuanced and elegant single-vineyard reds from 2015, the 2015 Le Dean is from the Valladolid part of Ribera del Duero. It has the elegant style of the house reds along with the minerality from the limestone soils and the old vines from a north-facing slope close to Vega Sicilia. This has a personality that justifies keeping it separate even though there are only 758 bottles of it. They used some 20% full clusters for the native fermentation, and the Tempranillo was co-fermented with the approximately 1% of white Albillo existing in the old vineyard. It matured in a 600-liter oak barrel for a total of 21 months—it was in a new barrel for three months and then was racked into a second use barrel. Outstanding. Even if the vineyard belongs to Ribera del Duero, the winery does not, so this is sold as a Vino de la Tierra Castilla y León. It was bottled in July 2017.