One of the reasons we do this part of the website is to afford ourselves the opportunity to talk about very exciting things that wouldn’t necessarily play well in our quick hit or email formats, the latter being limited by the number of days in a year. Still, distinctive wines like this deserve a forum.
In truth, we offered one of Yotuel’s bottlings, the 2009 Seleccion, some years ago at the old location. We loved the wine with its deep, polished, chocolate tinged blackberry fruit. Why didn’t it sell? Well there are lots of possible reasons it may not have jumped on the shelf, not the least of which are a difficult name (Gallego Zapatero Yotuel Ribera del Duero) for people to remember or pronounce, and a label that looked kind of like a Rorschach drawing (it is actually supposed to be a stylized grapevine). Anyway, some of it was lost in the shuffle during the move and turned up later in the inventory with a decade of bottle age. It was gorgeous drinking.
Coincidentally, not long after the last delicious bottle of that 2009, the purveyor (the same one we bought it from before) showed up with this top of the line effort from that same Gallego Zapatero Yotuel Finca Valdepalacios from the brilliant 2016 vintage. Needless to say, an equally difficult (maybe more) name from a still relatively unknown source at an upper $40 price didn’t promise the commercial success of MAGA hats. But the juice was stunning, layered and distinctive so we were ‘all in’.
The story of Gallego Zapatero is relatively straightforward and similar to many stories in this part of the world. The vineyards were planted by the grandparents of the current proprietors, brothers Bienvenido and Nacho. The nine plots owned by this family are located in the town of Anguix, in the foothills of Manvirgo Mountain. At 2500 height, these vineyards face temperature shifts of 50 degrees between day and night during the growing season, creating some of the most muscular wines in Ribera del Duero. Grapes are grown organically (certification pending), and the wines are fermented with only ambient yeasts.
The Gallego Zapatero Yotuel Finca Valdepalacios 2016 is 100% Tinto del Pais (the true Ribera clone of Tempranillo) harvested from a single, 1-acre plot of 79-year-old bush vines. The grapes were fermented in 100% new French oak where the juice remained for 14 months. The production was a whopping 1073 bottles and 50 magnums. It is a tribute to this boots-on-the-ground importer that something this special with such tiny production made it here at all.
A wine of great purity boasting layers of spicy blackberry, dark cherry, and cassis, with highlights of spice, chocolate and vanilla highlights from the sojourn in oak, and a seductive, velvety layer of fruit nicely overlaying ripe tannins. Given our experience with the Seleccion from years ago, we’re pretty confident this will be a star in the cellar. But it’s a seriously compelling mouthful already.