Eternauta 2020

The young team behind Mélida Wines sources this cooler climate Tinto Fino from a 98-yearold vineyard in the Burgos village of Gumiel de Izán. Fermented with 40% whole bunches, it's a spicy, peppery, clove-scented number with quite firm tannins, notes of sage, black olive and tapenade and a grippy, age-worthy finish. 2024-28

The 2020 Eternauta is a new ambitious red, which usually means more (oak, extraction, ripeness and price), produced with grapes from a 70-year-old vineyard in the village of Milagros on limestone-rich soils. They fermented it with 40% full clusters and indigenous yeasts in plastic bins and basically no post-fermentative maceration. Then the wine was transferred to 225-liter barrels for malolactic and 12months of aging. Somehow, it feels oakier than the Párpados—perhaps the barrels were smaller/newer—and while they kept the alcohol to 14%, the wine feels a little riper and definitely oakier and more tannic. This feels more like a traditional Ribera. 1,500 bottles were filled in December 2021. Give it some more time...