VEGA SICILIA Unico Gran Reserva 2011 Bottle

Description

Vega Sicilia Único 2011 is an extraordinary wine, recognised for its remarkable depth and complexity, earning 98 points from James Suckling and 96 points from both The Wine Advocate and Vinous. Suckling highlights its intensity, showcasing a core of hazelnuts, ripe blackberries, and chocolate orange, framed by finely textured, muscular tannins. Vinous describes the wine's captivating bouquet of ripe black and blue fruits, vanilla, and exotic spices, that leads to a palate rich with smoke-laced black currant and mocha flavours. Decanter awarded it 95 points, noting its vibrant freshness and elegant structure. Jancis Robinson rated it 18++ points, praising its fine tannins and considerable ageing potential. This exceptional wine is best enjoyed from 2025 to 2045.

*****

JAMES SUCKLING 98 points
Intensity and concentration mark this, with a deep core of hazelnuts, ripe blackberries, praline, chocolate orange and some iron. It’s full-bodied with very finely textured yet muscular tannins. Well framed. 95% tempranillo and 5% cabernet sauvignon. Tasted from magnum. Drinkable now, but with a long future ahead.

VINOUS 96 points
Drinking Window 2025 - 2036
From: The Vast Bounty of Central Spain (Feb 2021)
Deep, shimmering ruby. An intensely perfumed bouquet evokes ripe black and blue fruits, vanilla, pipe tobacco, exotic spices, cola and potpourri. Deeply concentrated and energetic on the palate, offering smoke-laced black currant, cherry liqueur, spicecake and mocha flavors that display outstanding clarity and pick up a candied violet nuance on the back half. Polished, steadily building tannins frame the finish, which hangs on with outstanding, mineral- and floral-driven tenacity. - By Josh Raynolds on June 2021

THE WINE ADVOCATE 96 points
Drink Date: 2021 - 2033
The Único released in 2021, 10 years after the harvest, is the 2011 Único, selected from 40 of their 210 hectares of vineyards. 2011 is a concentrated and ripe vintage, and they selected 95% Tinto Fino (Tempranillo) and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon that were cooled in a cold room for 24 hours before being sorted; the bunches and grapes macerated at 9 to 10 degrees Celsius for three to four days, and then it was inoculated with a pied de cuve to ferment with pumping overs. Malolactic was in stainless steel, and the wine was put through a long aging, 10 years between oak and bottle, using new and used French and American oak barrels and 20,000-liter oak vats. For Vega Sicilia, 2011 was a fresher year than 2010, not the common idea about those vintages in Ribera del Duero. The wine has a developed nose with some notes of ripe black fruit, meat and underbrush, somewhat herbal and perfumed. There is something about the nose of the Únicos that I cannot quite describe but is quite distinct, and it's in this vintage and also in the Reserva Especial.

DECANTER 95 points
Tasted by: Sarah Jane Evans MW
(at Vega Sicilia anniversary tasting, 06 Sep 2022)
Part of Vega Sicilia Único: anniversary vertical tasting of 40 vintages
Drinking Window: 2025 - 2045
Vibrant primary aromas of roses, oranges and fresh herbs lead into a wine full of redcurrant freshness. While 2011 is a more concentrated vintage, the wine is impressively elegant and delicate. Can be enjoyed soon for its structure, yet it will undoubtedly improve with age.

JANCIS ROBINSON 18++ points
Mellow nose and on the palate there’s a sensation rather akin to chewing charcoal. Hums along on the finish. Like the 2013, this is very much a wine for the future. Lots of fine tannins. (JR)