Spanish wines earned an impressive eight spots among our Top 100 World Wines this year but one was so exceptional that it was an easy pick for our Spanish Wine of the Year. The captivating Marqués de Murrieta Rioja Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial 2012 stood atop the nearly 3,800 wines we tasted from the country this year, with its complexity, finesse and restrained power coalescing to make it a potentially legendary offering.
This classic, age-worthy Rioja from the storied Marques de Murrieta winery, which is only bottled in excellent years, comes from the finest grapes in Rioja Alta’s 40-hectare La Plana vineyard, which sits 485 meters above sea level. Although 2012 was not an overall excellent vintage in Rioja, “It was very good regarding the viticulture and winemaking aspect,” said Marques de Murrieta technical director Maria Vargas, who has spent 30 years at the winery.
Said Murrieta CEO Vicente Dalmau: “It can be very different here at Castillo Ygay from Rioja in general when it comes to the best vintages. 2012 proved that again.” He added that the next vintage of Castillo Ygay, the 2016, won’t be released until around 2029. The 2012 vintage will be released this winter.
Our selection of the Top 100 Spanish wines takes into consideration not only ratings and value but also factors such as production volume and availability, and the Castillo Ygay excelled in the latter category with more than 100,000 bottles made.
The production volume was still 30 percent lower than for the 2011 vintage, however, due to drought conditions in 2012. Eighty-one percent of the 2012 blend comprised tempranillo aged for 34 months in American oak barrels, while the remaining 19 percent was mazuelo, aged for the same duration in French oak barrels.
While the influence of oak in the 2012 was less than in older vintages, the embryonic harmony and potential of the vintage puts it on par with the exceptional Ygays from 1934 and 1964, which possessed vibrant, energetic, and awe-inspiring character, as James wrote in his tasting note for the recent bottling.
Our Top 100 Spanish wines comprise 81 reds, 12 whites, four fortified (including three Jerez) wines, one rosado, one cava and one dessert wine. Rioja leads with 33 wines, followed by 14 from Ribera del Duero and 11 from Cataluña.
The three other 100-pointers on our list are equally as compelling as the Ygay, although they all come up short in the price/production categories compared with the Ygay. But many of Spain’s rare and top wines have become exorbitantly expensive recently, partially due to surging demand. Prices for some bottles have exceeded $1,000 per bottle, such as for Comando G’s ethereal and otherworldly Rumbo Al Norte garnacha, Alvaro Palacios’ garnacha-based L’Ermita, as well as his La Faraona mencia from his Descendentes de J. Palacios project. We excluded such pricy and limited-availability wines from inclusion on this list.
But two great alternatives to La Faraona, of which fewer than 700 bottles were produced from a steep 0.55-hectare plot, are the Descendientes de J. Palacios Bierzo Las Lamas 2021, which is No. 7 on our list, and the extremely elegant, expressive and affordable village red Descendientes de J. Palacios Bierzo Villa de Corullon 2021 (No. 55).
And the Alvaro Palacios Priorat La Baixada 2021 (No. 9) is equally as enchanting as the 100-point L’Ermita for less than a fifth of the price. It shows freshness and precision in its refined opulence, with vivid blue fruit, incisive minerality and fibrous tannins.
This year, our thirst for terroir-transparent Spanish garnachas was quenched in the magical Sierra de Gredos, where the beautifully airy and otherworldly Rumbo Al Norte was made. But Comando G made similarly exciting but much less expensive offerings than the Rumbo al Norte, including the Comando G Sierra de Gredos Tumba del Rey Moro 2021 (No. 12) and Comando G Sierra de Gredos Las Iruelas 2020 (No. 18). Both were standout wines that we thoroughly enjoyed.
Other wines from Gredos, with their strong granitic austerity, deserve more attention and exposure. Our No. 19 wine, the 4 Monos Vino de Pueblo Sierra de Gredos Cadalso de los Vidrios Molino Quemado La Danza del Viento 2020, is a serious introduction to the región, while the Rico-Nuevo Garnacha Sierra de Gredos Cebreros La Quebrá Vino de Parcela 2020 (No. 40) and Vitícola Mentridana Méntrida Cantos de Diablo 2020 (No. 47) reflect Gredos’ ethereal, reductive beauty. Both of the latter wines feature a shiny ruby color and whole-cluster pepperiness with tangy notes of herbs and grapefruit citrus.
Despite the skyrocketing prices for some of Spain’s most envied offerings, the country’s virtues of great value and snappy drinkability still shine through in its immense diversity of grapes, climates and extreme terroirs. The Envínate Vinos Atlánticos Migan 2021 (No. 3) is a prime example: an exciting cuvee crafted from the braided vines of listan negro amid the volcanic terroirs of the Canary Islands. It is a lifted, high-toned red that shows remarkable drinkability with its nervy and smoky wild fruit.
The quartet of Roberto Santana, Alfonso Torrente, Laura Ramos and José Martínez has consistently produced pristine wines that showcase smoky, peppery and mouthwatering wines from the Canary Islands, Galicia and Almansa. The Envínate Ribeira Sacra Lousas Parcela Camiño Novo Vinos Atlánticos 2021 (No. 15) and Envínate Vinos Atlánticos Palo Blanco 2021 (No. 35) are among the finest examples.
In the eastern part of Spain, Bodega Ponce makes nervy and tense bobals in Manchuela, and is probably best represented by its great-value, Burgundy-like Bodegas y Viñedos Ponce Bobal Manchuela La Estrecha 2021 (No. 22). It shows how, with the right terroir and under the right direction, rustic bobal can morph into a sharp, precise and attractively textured and mineral red that rivals the purity and refinement of a pinot noir.
One of the thrilling discoveries from Spain this year is the F. Algueira Ribeira Sacra Dolio 2019 (No. 21). It’s a unique debut denoted by superb Galician freshness from a lofty and incredibly steep vineyard in Ribeira Sacra. With the assistance of Telmo Rodriguez and his winemaking partner Pablo Eguzkiza, this wine was crafted using whole clusters from a local blend of mencia, brancellao, souson, caino, and alicante bouschet, resulting in a tangy, peppery profile enriched with savory dried herbs and juicy wild berries.
This inaugural vintage has already been sold through La Place de Bordeaux, just like Telmo Rodriguez’s esteemed Yjar Rioja 2019 from Remelluri Estate, which secured 5th place on the list with its nuanced, delicate expression that highlights intrinsic beauty, fragrance, and purity.
The three other Rioja wines in our Top 10 include one of our all-time favorites. La Rioja Alta Rioja Gran Reserva 890 2010 (No. 4) strikes an emotional chords with its sheer hedonism, layers and impressive length that derive from Rioja’s controlled tertiary complexity and well-integrated oak. Similarly, the Muga Rioja Prado Enea Gran Reserva 2016 (No. 10) showcases the class, finesse and sophistication emblematic of Rioja. For those seeking utterance of the finest single terroirs in Rioja, the excellent-value Contino Rioja Vina del Olivo 2020 (No. 2) offers vibrant energy and tremendous vibrancy.
There is also an epiphanic hairy garnacha among the Top 10 – the Terroir al Limit Priorat Les Manyes 2021 (No. 8), which comes from an extreme yet cooler, west-facing site that, according to winemakers Tatjana Peceric and Dominik Huber, defies tradition in pursuit of provenance.
“We are culturally free and there is no tradition in our mindsets that leads us to make decisions that are rather historic and local when it comes to matters like picking time. We pick when it’s necessary,” Huber said. This has led them to eliminate the use of oak. Instead, all their wines are whole-cluster fermented, too, and no destemmers are used in the winery.
Although I also love the depth, crunch and fluidity of Huber’s superbly fresh carignans, it is this garnacha that has the “wow” factor we look for when we rank our wines for our Top 100 lists.
We hope you enjoy exploring this curated list and can make a toast to some exceptional wines from Spain this year. Salud!
– Zekun Shuai, Senior Editor
Note: The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated in 2023 by the tasters at JamesSuckling.com. You can sort the wines below by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.
