Cuesta de las Liebres 2019 Magnum

A polished Ribera del Duero with powdery sweet spices, chocolate, blueberries, graphite and blackberries. Concentrated, full-bodied and intense with very polished silky tannins and an even, extensive finish. Such refinement for Ribera del Duero with a precise, seamless finish. Drinkable now, but much better after 2025. Will age beautifully in the next decade.

The top-of-the-range 2019 Cuesta de Las Liebres is pure Tinto Fino from a slope ("cuesta" is the Spanish word for slope), 3.36 hectares planted in 1993 that they only bottle separately in exceptional years. 2019 was a healthy and homogeneous vintage, with ripeness and harmony. It comes from very chalky and white soils. The handpicked grapes fermented in small oak vats with indigenous yeasts, and the wine matured in new 225-liter French oak barrels. The oak is integrated and does not dominate the aromas or flavors, and the wine is serious and harmonious, with elegance and subtleness. It has 15% alcohol and a full-bodied palate with abundant, fine-grained and chalky tannins. 8,000 bottles were filled in May 2022.

Cuesta de la Liebres is a three-hectare parcel at 850 metres, and is only made in what Almudena Calvo considers the best years. It's certainly located at the riper, fuller-bodied end of the Ribera del Duero spectrum, but it's well made in its style, with plenty of grip and tannins, the intensity of small berries and enough underlying freshness to lift the slightly jammy fruit flavours. 2024-27