ABADIA RETUERTA 'Cuvee El Campanario' - Castilla y Leon 1996 Bottle

Description

Abadía Retuerta 1996 Cuvee Campanario is a remarkable wine, crafted from 100% Tempranillo and aging for 16 months in new French Limousin oak barrels. The Wine Advocate awards it 94 points, noting its deep saturated purple hue and complex profile. Luis Gutiérrez highlights the black fruit aromas of blackberries, black raspberries, and overripe cherries, contributing to a full-bodied and tightly structured palate enriched by intriguing mineral notes. The wine boasts sweet, well-integrated tannins from a 28-day maceration, providing a bold experience with potential for further aging. The recommended waiting period of two to three years before opening allows for the wine's complexity to fully develop. Overall, this vintage is a powerful contender that could rival top-tier Bordeaux in a blind tasting.

*****

The 100% Tempranillo 1996 Cuvee Campanario is a layered and elegant wine with a richness that could easily rival a top-tier Bordeaux in a blind tasting. It was aged for 16 months in 100% new French Limousin oak barrels and bottled without filtration. The wine has a deep saturated purple hue and exhibits a complex, impressive profile. Its bouquet features black fruit aromas including blackberries black raspberries and overripe cherries.

The full-bodied and tightly structured palate reveals intriguing mineral notes. The 28-day maceration imparts a high tannin content which is sweet and well integrated within the wines framework. It’s more reserved both aromatically and on the palate, offering a bold and powerful experience. Because of its structure and potential, it is recommended to wait another two to three years before opening.

THE WINE ADVOCATE 94 points
Reviewed by: Luis Gutiérrez
Drink Date: 2000 - 2026
Also from their initial vintage and released as part of the historical vintages range, the 1996 Cuvee El Campanario was produced with pure Tempranillo from vines planted between 1991 and 1994. 1996 was a textbook vintage with winter rains and a warm summer that allowed for perfect ripeness of the grapes. The wine has only 12.8% alcohol but shows ripe black fruit notes and an herbal touch, spicy and peppery, with a medium-bodied palate where the tannins are fully resolved. It lacks a little in the mid-palate but finishes with clean flavors and good length. It has a tertiary profile with notes of iodine and soy sauce, with a darker personality than El Palomar from this same inaugural vintage that I tasted next to it. It's great to be able to compare these two wines after so many years in bottle. It was bottled in June 1998. They are releasing some 120 bottles now.

Abadía Retuerta is also working on getting their vineyards and wines the organic certification, which reflects their environmentally minded approach. They have 193 hectares of vineyards, and they only vinify their own grapes. Average production is 600,000 bottles. They are releasing limited quantities of back vintages taken from their library, going back to the initial 1996 vintage. Published: Jun 13, 2024