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The river Duero when it passes through Valbuena marks out the property's northern boundary, that is, all the part of it located on the south side of the
river. The southern boundary is marked out by the wood which climbs up the slope leading to the level ground. There are more than 200 hectares of vineyard with yields not exceeding 32 hectolitres per acre. Only magnificent wines can withstand the acid test of such a long ageing in wood. The Vega Sicilia reds are protected by tannins, the age of the grapevines
and the quality of the four grape varieties –Tinto Fino, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec–, which mature slowly because of the northern orientation of the vineyards and the estate's fluvial microclimate. The bunches of grapes are controlled as in the best areas of Bordeaux, with the benefit of an alluvial soil, typical of river basins, the best type of terrain for
cultivating quality vines. From the oldest vines located in the Ontañon and Valdemarina vineyards on the left-hand side of the river we get the small black
fruit which a minimum of ten years later will become Vega Sicilia. Only the better vintages are bottled as Valbuena red, and the very good and excellent vintages are destined for the Vega Sicilia red.
The peculiar characteristics of Vega Sicilia make it a very Spanish wine. This concept is related to a wine which is robust, warm, full-bodied and generous.
What is Spanish about this wine has something to do with long periods of ageing in wood. The wood makes the wine robust, gentle and alcoholic. Spanish wines are extensively racked which gives them more ageing and
oxygenisation, a practice which accounts for the more perceptible traits of a certain oxidisation to be found in them because of their greater alcoholic strength.
All these elements, coupled with the precision of state-of-the-art technology, are reflected in the Vega Sicilia red. Its alcoholic content reaches 14 degrees, it
has body and it is aged in wood for never less than seven years. This type of wine, having vanished from most of Europe's most distinguished wine
producing areas, makes Vega Sicilia even more original, because it is the only wine still being made in this way. Within this key there is one factor contrasting with the above-mentioned traits,
the use (apart from indigenous Tinto Fino) of different noble grape varieties originally from Bordeaux, which have acclimatised for more than a century in the vineyards and have become something else.
Furthermore, the characteristics of the Vega Sicilia red are totally different to the Ribera del Duero model. They are characteristics not unlike those of the
great wines produced in Rioja, Bordeaux or Burgundy at the beginning of the century, longer cask ageing, not so much because it was the fashion of the
time, but because the wine only left the cask for the bottle at the moment when it was delivered to the customer. Seven years ageing in wood does not mean a boring, lifeless period of lethargy.
After a year the wine moves from the big wooden vats, to spend two years in an almost new cask, with four rackings in the first year and two in the second.
Subsequently, it spends a year in older casks with one racking and for the remaining three years it will lie in old casks and be decanted every ten
months. The whole of this "trip" from cask to cask over a long period avoids violent filtrations and facilitates a final clarification. It ends its wanderings
with a peaceful two-year repose in the bottle before being released for sale. This long and effusive courtship between wine and wood is made against the
background of the impeccable cleanliness of the old casks. Vega Sicilia has a cooper's workshop not only for repairs and reconditioning, but also for making
new casks with wood which has been dried for three years in the outside courtyard. |
