Vega Sicilia Valbuena 5° Ribera del Duero (2020)

Valbuena 5º is Vega Sicilia’s purest red wine expression. Its ageing, five years in oak and bottle, gives the wine its name: Valbuena 5º. 

Two extraordinary events marked 2020, a year we will never forget. On the one hand, Covid forced us to adapt to the new circumstances and introduce protective measures we had never needed before, but it also strengthened our team spirit enormously.

On the other hand, the heavy rainfall before the harvest changed our forecasts. In this vintage it was essential to be vigilant in the vineyard, tasting and monitoring the grapes to check their concentration after the dilution caused by the rain.

Valbuena 5º 2020 is a more ethereal, elegant and subtle expression. Delicate, but also rich and profound. A real pleasure.

Blend:  97 % Tinto Fino/Tempranillo and 3 % Merlot

Reviews

97 James Suckling
Extremely perfumed with violets and a bouquet of flowers. Then there’s blue fruits such as blueberries and raspberries. Medium-bodied with beautifully crafted tannins that give a superb mouthfeel and finesse. Refinement with depth and focus. So wonderful to drink now but it will be even better in four or five years. Try in 2027.

96 Wine Enthusiast
The scent of cherry preserves and violet wafts from the glass. A cloak of elegant tannins is wrapped around Mission fig, cherry preserve, mocha, fennel pollen and rose petal flavors that evaporate into a satisfying and long-lasting finish.

95 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The obsession in 2019 was to avoid excess ripeness and to keep the freshness, so they did a softer vinification, used larger vats for the élevage and used less American wood. The 2019 Valbuena was produced with a blend of Tinto Fino with 3% Merlot. It has 14.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.88 and 4.6 grams of acidity. I love the nose; it is perfumed and subtle. And the wine is beautifully textured; the tannins are very fine, silky even, quite different from the tannins from the other 2019s from the group that I tasted next to this, Macán and Pintia. A triumph over the conditions of the year, it's a more elegant Valbuena than I anticipated. 190,490 bottles, 5,581 magnums and some larger formats produced. It was bottled in June 2022.

Details Location Spain > Del Duero > Castilla y León > Ribera del Duero Grapes Merlot, Tempranillo Category Wine > Red Alcohol 14.50 Enclosure Cork Size 750ml