Parada de Atauta 2020

The youngest of the reds here, the 2020 Parada de Atauta was selected from 90+-year-old vines on sandy soils from a rainier and cooler year that they compare with 2016. The grapes fermented destemmed in concrete and stainless steel and underwent malolactic in concrete followed by 13 months in French oak barrels, 20% of them new, plus four more months in concrete before being bottled. It's slightly lighter and less ripe than the 2019 (which I also tasted on this occasion), with 14.5% alcohol and a pH of 3.6 denoting freshness and balance. It has a creamy nose that combines red berries with darker ones and some sweet spices and smoke in a subtle and harmonious way. The tannins are very fine and the mouthfeel quite silky. 52,823 bottles and 900 magnums produced. It was bottled in August 2022.

It says something about the age of Dominio de Atauta's vines that Parada de Atauta uses grapes from the bodega's youngest plots, planted in the 1930s. Lighter in style because of its sandy soils, this is savoury, spicy and appealingly Mediterranean in style, with notes of pine and rosemary and mulberry and red berry fruit. 2024-29.

Notes of dark cherries, plums, chocolate, hints of sandalwood and cloves. Full and chewy with tight-grained tannins and succulent fruit underneath. Linear and focused with a chalky minerality at the end. Try after 2024.