Parker-Luis Gutierrez 94 Punkte: 2021-2026,The 2017 Alión, the only wine produced here, comes from a challenging year marked by spring frost and a warm and dry end of the season, so they reduced the amount of new oak by 8%. It fermented with indigenous yeasts, and 10% of the volume aged in concrete, completely unoaked. The change in the oak regimen helped with the style of the vintage, which was marked by the frost that hit part of the Alión vineyards. Furthermore, the end of the season was warm and dry, and they had to work to control ripeness and power and perhaps the possibility of more aggressive tannins. It's a classical Alión, with some developed aromas, juicy and round but not heavy, with just a tad of earthy rusticity. With time, it develops more balsamic notes and hints of licorice. 230,032 bottles, 7,04 magnums, 614 double magnums and a handful of bigger sizes were produced. It was bottled in June 2019.
They never stop at Alión and keep renovating their cellar and winery to achieve more precision in their fermentations and using more concrete for the aging of the wines. They have 130 hectares of vineyards in the villages of Padilla de Duero, Pesquera and Valbuena de Duero to produce 250,000 to 300,000 bottles per year.
Suckling 95 Punkte: Lots of chocolate and berry with some coffee-bean and vanilla undertones. It’s full and layered with plenty of fruit, round tannins and pleasing complexity of smoked and toasted wood. Tar undertone. Very drinkable now, but better after 2022.
