La Faraona 2023 Magnum en Primeur

The excitement of tasting a new vintage of La Faraona is hard to describe. The young, mysterious and insinuating 2023 La Faraona reveals an incredible nose of roses, violets, wild berries and herbs, curry and white pepper and an herbal twist of freshness, with incipient complexity and outstanding elegance. It's their highest vineyard, planted with 83-year-old Mencía and 2% white grapes that achieved 13.5% alcohol. The rain from the second week of September didn't do it any good, because it was still far from being harvested. It required a lot of manual work to keep all the bunches separate, never touching the ground, cleaning the vines manually one by one. It fermented with some full clusters in oak vats and is currently aging in a 1,600-liter foudre. There is no oak to be found in the aromas, and the tannins are as elegant, fine-grained and ethereal as I've ever seen in this wine. They got a good crop even though they did a green harvest. This is elegant to the point of being approachable even earlier than the 2022.

La Faraona is the highest vineyard on the estate, with a volcanic fault running through it. Volcanic energy shows in the bright red fruit and red gooseberry aromas, the crisp, juicy freshness and firm tannins underpinning the complex palate. This is a wine on its way to the top and scores will only go up.

Seductively inviting, the 2023 Faraona is a thing of beauty. At close to 900m, the 0.5ha vineyard is at the highest limit of viable viticulture in this zone. 83-year-old Mencía vines (with a little Palomino) are grown on intensely slatey soils on perilously steep slopes resulting in a steely, stony and austere wine that has impressive drive. Forest aromas abound with lavender, thyme and oregano that sit alongside pretty notes of rose and wild summer berries. The oak is already seamlessly integrated and fine while ripe tannins simply play a supporting role. The wine is velvety and refined, and despite being far from the finished product, it is already in a drinkable state, suggesting it will be the greatest of temptations not to drink too young! 2026-35