Weinhandelshaus Scholzen

I tasted two vintages of the ungrafted Bobal, as the 2019 P.F. had already been bottled after 10 months in oak vats and barrels. They think 2019 is a very complete vintage; they had rain in the middle of the harvest that helped to balance the wines after a warm and dry year. The vines here are 90 years old on granite soils, and like the rest, the grapes fermented with 100% full clusters and indigenous yeasts in 4,500-liter oak vats. 2019 is a more forward vintage than 2018; there is more fruit and it's a little riper. But it has the chalky austerity in the palate, very mineral and soil-driven. 11,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2020, a few weeks before I tasted it.

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the winery, the Ponce family has released from the excellent 2018 vintage a new top of the range that carries their surname. The family owns 50 hectares in the villages of Iniesta, Villanueva de la Jara, Villamalea and Mahora, from which they produce 120,000 bottles of some of the best wines from Manchuela. 2018 is an exceptional vintage, which Juan Antonio Ponce compares with 2008, 2010 or 2013, with lower alcohol and more elegant wines. 2019 is a very good year, very Mediterranean, with a warm summer and a cold spell during the harvest that perhaps produced more immediate wines than 2018, a little in the style of 2016 or 2017.