Product Description
94 points James Suckling
"Very complex, light pink-berry aromas with baking spices, wild herbs and bright floral notes. The palate is musky and delicious with a really superb textural build and a smooth, fine and fresh blood-orange and strawberry finish. Drink now."
93+ points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
"The youngest of the released wines I tasted is a red—the 2016 Pícaro del Águila Tinto. It is from what they consider to be one of the best and freshest vintages in recent times. This is produced with the vines from the warmer parts of La Aguilera, a cold place to start with (and in a cooler year). The old vines are planted with a mix that is dominated by Tempranillo but also contains some 5% other grapes. All the grapes are picked and fermented together with full clusters and natural yeasts in concrete and stainless steel vats. It matured in oak barrels for 13 months. This is fragrant, expressive, open, aromatic and really attractive. The palate is really balanced, with great freshness, fine tannins and a very pleasant mouthfeel—supple, balanced and with great depth. This is the best version of this bottling so far, and it seems like 2016 could be a great overall vintage, based on some other wines I sampled from cask (many of them have an extended élevage)."
91 points Wine & Spirits
"Jorge Monzón comes from a family with old vines in the town of La Aguilera. After working in Burgundy and Ribera del Duero, he founded this winery in 2010, renovating a 17th-century cellar, where he foot-treads whole bunches of his organically farmed grapes, mostly tempranillo interplanted with blanca del país, garnacha and bobal. Pícaro is his village wine, an intriguing contrast of rustic and polished, ancient and modern. There’s a floral scent of fresh grapes, and a sweet fruit character of blueberries even though the wine is not sweet. Lasting on deep, saturated, waxy fruit-skin tannins, this is tarry and spicy, needing bottle age to mellow and integrate."
Jancis Robinson
"Tempranillo with around 5% other local varieties. Fermented in tank and concrete and aged in older French barrels.
Deep cherry red. Spicy, rocky, almost savoury dark-red fruit. Dry, chewy texture, the chalky tannins as much as the acidity give freshness. Such finesse in that dry, dark-chocolate-textured finish. 17/20 points. (JH)"
Vinous Reverie Notes
The Tinto counterpart to the Clarete is a co-fermented blend of primarily Tempranillo with Albillo, Garnacha and Bobal – fruit which is strictly selected from parcels chosen for their quality, but also in response to vintage conditions. In warmer years, cooler sites are favored and in cooler vintages, warmer sites are utilized. The soils are heavier in clay, which in a dry climate like Ribera del Duero, prevents vine stress and promotes a even and simultaneous ripening of both fruit and stems – vitally important for whole cluster, natural fermentations.
