Barrera de Sol 2019

The 2019 Barrera de Sol is Garnacha from the paraje El Zaudejo, between the villages of Burgohondo and Navatalgordo. It's southeast-facing at 900 to 1,000 meters in altitude, and the soils are sandy down to 1.8 meters where you find the granite mother rock. This reflects power and ripeness, and in the warm and ripe 2019, the vines suffered, the branches grew very little and the yields were tiny and the grapes all skin and pips. The vines are around 80 years old, and they are head-pruned and organically farmed (pending certification). This is the darkest of the reds, and the nose has riper aromas despite the wine being similar in alcohol, 13.5%, through harvesting earlier and achieving almost 1% less alcohol than in 2018. It matured in oak barrels of different sizes, and in later vintages, they also used foudres and oak vats. It's more Mediterranean, aromatic and open. It's serious and has abundant, fine-grained tannins, and it's going to repay keeping it in bottle. 3,987 bottles were filled in May 2021.