Tasting Notes

WA92

The 1998 Vall Llach Edición Especial 20 Aniversario is 45% Cariñena and 45% Merlot complemented by 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, clearly a wine from a different era. The Cariñena is very old, and the French grapes were only planted in 1994. The wine had a 40 day maceration and aged in new French barriques for 17 months, during which time it was racked twice. Twenty years after the harvest, the wine is still alive and is quite dark, concentrated and powerful. But even the almost 50% of old vines used for it didn't seem to have the fruit to overcome the amount of new oak it received, and it's still quite oaky; it reflects a winemaking style from a bygone era, when color, concentration and power were so important that most people took a "the more, the better approach" that resulted in lots of excess. The palate shows abundant grainy and astringent tannins, and they are never going to be in balance with the fruit. A curiosity for fans of very oaky wines in the 1990s style. 4,127 bottles and some magnums were filled in March 2000. I tasted one of the 154 magnums produced.

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