Vega Sicilia Unico Vertical Tasting: The Pinnacle of Freshness and Ageability

Vega Sicila’s “40 Magnums for 40 Years” in early September began with a welcome dinner at the Roca brothers’ Mas Marroch restaurant, followed by a day of tastings, lunch and dinner at their three-star Michelin restaurant El Cellar de Can Roca in Girona, Spain. But it was the tasting of the 40 Unicos dating back to 1960 that stole the show, and the wines, tasted over several hours of respectful quietude and stillness, were a clear demonstration of Unico’s ability to age with grace for well over half a century.

The morning consisted of tasting even-year vintages from 2014 back to 1960, while the afternoon was dedicated to odd-year vintages, accompanied by a spectacular lunch prepared by Joan, Jordi, and Josep Roca i Fontané, who some say are Spain’s greatest chefs.

It was difficult to discern the character of the wines by decade because of the variation in intensity and structure between vintages within each decade. The last decade has, nevertheless, seen a subtle change to more restrained and integrated oak, particularly from the 2009 vintage onward. Still, very few of the older bottles showed oak domination and most of the wines showed superb balance of fruit and spice, with herbal notes marking a few fresher vintages, with the longer barrel maturation perhaps providing more of a firm and ripe tannin frame rather than overt vanilla or toasty notes.

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This is particularly interesting considering the long aging of Unico, old vintages of which spent as much 10 years in barrels and/or old casks before bottling. In the past, the wines were sold straight from barrel.

Pablo Alvarez, the soft-spoken 68-year-old CEO of Vega Sicilia, explained that the wines spend less time in barrel now and more in bottle before release. “It is true that many years ago, people liked wines with more aging and evolution, and now they like more fresh wines.

“But I don’t think we changed the style of Vega Sicilia, because the style is in the vineyard,” he added. “I think the personality of Vega is the same, but we have slowly changed the type of aging. So I call it evolution, not revolution.”

The consistency in greatness is striking, with all the wines of Unico produced since the mid-1980s at 95 points or above, according to my ratings. Some of the top younger vintages were 2000, 2004, 2006, and 2009 to 2014, with 2010 standing out for its intense spiciness that lasted for minutes. The 2014, which will not be released until 2026, is refined and ethereal, with streamlined layers of dark fruit and peppery spice, tightly wound tannins and incredible length. The 2013, which will be released next year (and the magnum in 2025) is just as impressive, with a seductive ripeness yet underlying freshness and great complexity.

AGED FOR ELEGANCE

Gonzalo Iturriaga, who has been technical director of Vega Sicilia since 2015, explained that they have been slowly transitioning to larger wooden vats of around 20,000 liters, and experimenting with different types of oak, both French and American, depending on the vintage. He took the reins from Xavier Ausas (the head winemaker from 1998 to 2015), who had in turn succeeded Mariano Garcia (1985-1998). “It’s not necessarily less new oak,” Iturriaga said, telling me that the more important gradual change has been less time in oak to more time in bottle before release. “I want [the wine] to be slowly more elegant.”

Some of the highlights of the older vintages included the deep and sensual 1968, alongside the 1962 vintage, a favorite among all, which was showing incredible energy and life 60 years on. The 1970 clearly stood out for its youthfulness, with the 20 percent cabernet sauvignon expressing itself in crushed granite and a firm minerality to the tannin frame. Both the 1986, classy and elegant, and the 1989, ripe and intense, showed beautiful complexity. And in the 90s, look out for the 1991, 1996 and 1999, all drinking deliciously with plenty of life ahead.

The 1960 and several of the wines from the 70s are perhaps nearing the end of their (very long) drinking window. But while we had two faulty bottles of 1968 (a third was miraculously found and delivered from Barcelona), it was surprising how few bad bottles there were given the age of the wines.

Some of the greatest wines were made in difficult vintages, such as the 1999, a special vintage for Alvarez. They lost part of the crop because of intense rains in October, resulting in a pause in harvest in the second half of October before resuming in November.

“For me, the ‘99 was a very difficult vintage, but at the end the quality was fantastic,” Alvarez said. “We lost 30 percent of production, but wine is like children – you are not supposed to have favorites, but if they are difficult you spend more time on them and the result is great.”

In the vineyard, the main changes seem to have happened in the 1980s. Starting in the early 2000s, the precise number of hectares of Finca Vega Sicilia (210 hectares) was set. Before this, the exact area under vine was unknown.

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“When Vega Sicilia started in 1864, we had 2,000 hectares of estate but we didn’t record how many hectares of vineyards we had,” said general manager Antonio Menendez. “In the last decades, we have reduced the number of hectares and number of varieties.”

Of the 210 hectares now planted, 60 hectares currently go into Unico, which in the last couple of decades seems to have found a steady balance of tinto fino (tempranillo) blended with 5 to 15 percent of cabernet sauvignon. 1987 was the last vintage that had the inclusion of malbec and merlot.

“For me, tempranillo in our area is the best varietal,” Iturriaga said. “When you add even 0.5 percent of something else, it changes completely, like cabernet sauvignon. It helps us touch and give more elegance to the wine.”

The greatness of the 40 magnums of Unico in the event certainly highlighted why Vega Sicilia is considered one of Spain’s pre-eminent wineries, and its continued evolution to reach the pinnacle of quality is why Unico remains one of the most sought-after wines in the world.

Here are the tasting notes and ratings from the event for all wines of Unico produced since 1970, along with four vintages selected from the 1960s.

– Claire Nesbitt, Associate Editor