El Sequé 2018

The only wine I tasted from the winery in Alicante from Artadi was the red 2018 El Sequé, as the 2017 weather didn't allow them to produce the sweet wine. This is pure Monastrell from organically farmed vines at 600 meters in altitude on sandy and clay soils. The wine went through malolactic and aged for 12 months in 500-liter French oak barrels. It was a very difficult year with lots of rain, which decimated the yields. The wine is finer, more delicate, less Mediterranean with more fruit and quite approachable. It's certainly lighter than your average Mediterranean Monastrell, quite ethereal. It has very good freshness and very fine tannins. It has very clean and focused flavors with very good freshness. I like this vintage very much, but it was at the cost of production. In 2018, they only produced 20,000 bottles. It was bottled in July 2020.