Castaño Colección Cepas Viejas 2018

Bodegas Castaño has managed to give the Yecla winemaking region a well-deserved name for quality wines. A family-run winery with clear ideas about their aims, they have developed great wines by breaking with old stereotypes and shaking things up among the ideas of traditional oenologists. Although the incomparable Casa Cisca is still their most emblematic red wine, the Colección Cepas Viejas offers a wonderful alternative profile of the Monastrell variety. A fruity, aromatic, mature, and elegant wine with just the right amount of tannins. It is produced with fruit from low yield old vines, over 40 years old, planted in the north-to-south facing El Espinal estate at an altitude of 750 metres. The stone covered sandy-chalky soil and a Mediterranean climate tempered by a continental influence also add to the recipe to ensure this splendid red wine has its own unique character. Colección Cepas Viejas is a blend of Monastrell and Cabernet Sauvignon (70%-30% or 80%-20% depending on the year) fermented with local yeast before ageing for ten months in 225-litre oak barrels. It has an intense purple colour. On tasting, the oak is well-integrated and it offers a rich and defined nose of black fruit, spices, and a hint of bark. It is quite a compact wine, with a medium to full body, earthy and sweet tannins, and a praiseworthy balance. A clearly Mediterranean wine, it is mature, concentrated and complex, with fruity aromas of blackberries and cranberries bringing out the true essence of the Yecla region even in its more challenging vintages. A modern yet classic wine, with an almost melancholic sensation. It is mature and heady, juicy and rounded, with the minerality of its chalky soil and a long dry and elegant finish on the palate. Each sip of the wine leaves delicate notes of roasted coffee and hints of chocolate.