Plácet Valtomelloso Blanco 2019

I also previewed the white 2019 Plácet Valtomelloso, only a few days after I tasted a final sample of the master blend to be bottled. It's 100% Viura from 34-year-old organically farmed vines on a soft slope of the Monte Yerga in Alfaro at 50 meters above sea level. It fermented in oval oak vats with indigenous yeasts and matured in 2,000-liter oak foudres. It's extremely young and tender but already harmonious, faintly balsamic and showing the purity and precision that seem to be the signature here. This is still quite primary and reveals good freshness and harmony. It has a pleasant bitter twist in the finish. It needs some time in bottle to develop some further complexity; I think it could develop in the style of the 2015. Scheduled to be bottled around the time this report comes out, there will be some 17,000 bottles of this. - Luis Gutiérrez. 

Álvaro Palacios has been making this varietal Viura since 1997, but it doesn't always get the respect it deserves as one of the best white wines in the region. Fermented in large wooden ovals and 10% new barrels, it has lovely pear and honeysuckle notes, subtle vanilla spice and the underlying concentration of its old-vine source. 2023-29