Real de Asúa 2020

Such purity and clarity to the wine with blackberries, blackcurrants, violets and orange peel. Medium to full body and fine tannins. Polished, bright, vivid and agile. Powdery tannins with wonderful length and finesse. Savory, too. Give it three to four years of bottle age.

The 2020 Real de Asúa is a wine that changed in 2018 when it started being produced exclusively with Tempranillo from the lieu-dit Carromaza in the village of Villalba. 2020 was warm, and the grapes were picked two weeks earlier than in 2019. The grapes are harvested in 300-kilo palot containers and fermented after a cold soak in small oak vats with indigenous yeasts. Malolactic was in French oak barrels, and the aging was in new and second-use barriques and lasted 12 months. This feels quite classical, balanced and serious. The nose is subtle, elegant and quite impressive, with notes of herbs and a touch of mustard; it's fresh and well above the expectation from a year like 2020. Today, I prefer this to the 2021. 12,453 bottles were filled in March 2023.