Bodegas y Vinedos 2018 Alion Ribera De Duero Red Wine
4564Product Details
(JS 96) Fresh and very floral with violets and berries.
Blackberries and orange peel, too. Medium-to full-bodied with firm, linear
tannins. Excellent length and structure. Seriously structured, Better after
2024, but already beautiful.
(RP-WA 95) The 2018 Alion follows the path of the 2016: it
is fresh and elegant and from a cooler (more Atlantic) vintage with more rain
than the average and a relatively late harvest between September 28th and
October 12th. They used 80% new barrels, with up to 10% made of American oak
looking to (in their own words) give more sucrosity and sweetness to the wine,
as it's a more vertical, tense and elegant expression of Alion. Part of the
wine matured in concrete (something they started in 2016), and in 2021 they are
experimenting with a 4,000-liter Rousseau foudre, as they want to keep working
the texture and freshness. The wine is ripe at 15% alcohol and has a pH of 3.8
and a mellow 4.6 grams of acidity, round and soft. The wine matured until it
was bottled in June 2020. The truth is that the wine comes through as subtle,
elegant and balanced, with very integrated oak and a nice texture. It's one of
the finest vintages for Alion.