Bodegas Casa Castillo Casa Castillo Vino de Finca 2017 750ml

The 2018 Vino de Finca is a blend of Monastrell with 25% Garnacha from a cooler, more continental vintage. The Monastrell is from 20- to 30-year-old vines, and the 8-year-old Garnacha is from limestone-rich soils. It fermented in the underground stone pools with 25% to 30% full clusters and indigenous yeasts and matured in 5,000-liter foudres and 500-liter barrels for 12 months. As all the Garnacha plots are now in production, there has been a higher percentage of it in the blend since 2017. The selection of plots used for this wine results in something more serious, more austere and with more depth than the entry-level Casa Castillo. He doesn’t use Syrah in this blend because he thinks without Syrah it has a more Mediterranean profile, with aromatic herbs, thyme, rosemary and lavender and the slightly more rustic notes of the Monastrell. 53,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in December 2019. (Luis Gutiérrez)

There is a big jump in depth, complexity and nuance between the Monastrell and the 2017 Vino de Finca, which is a blend of Monastrell with almost 25% Garnacha. This comes from four plots that were selected from what was previously used for the entry-level Monastrell; they aim was to find a wine with more finesse and elegance but with the inherent power of the zone. This is only the third vintage for this cuvée, and it feels quite established and different from the rest of the range; it has less varietal character and is more about the place, getting closer to the single-vineyard bottlings where they do not search for fruit character. The idea here is to ferment at temperatures that are quite so low and to stabilize the wine in oak barrels for a long-ish time (12 months in 500-liter barrels and 5,000-liter oak foudres). They are wines of sun and limestone. This is a good reflection of it with a perfumed and floral note on the finish (elegance!) that is quite remarkable. 31,000 bottles produced in 2017. It was bottled in November 2018.