94pts Wine Advocate
The 2022 Arroyo del Trtolas is a single-vineyard Garnacha from a plot that achieves higher ripeness, and it has the palest color of the 2022s. This is the wine that they consider “wilder,” and it has higher alcohol (15%) but also higher acidity, which compensates for the ripeness. It’s spicy and heady but delicate, juicy and fine-boned, with very fine tannins and a long finish where you notice the warm year. It fermented with 80% full clusters and indigenous yeasts and had a long maceration of more than 60 days. This wine is quite regular year in, year out. It matured in four used 500-liter barrels and is the one where you feel the levage in the aromas, but nothing excessive. 2,400 bottles produced. There’s also a three-year blend from this plot. Drink Date: 2024 – 2033

Bernabeleva is located in the province of Madrid and is one of the largest producers in Gredos. They have 40 hectares, all in the village of San Martn de Valdeiglesias, from which they produce some 90,000 bottles. The vines are worked organically, and the wines are starting to carry the certification on their back labels. They have a wide portfolio: five dry whites and a sweet one and a nice collection of reds, including some superb vineyard designated ones. In 2023, the wines have contained ripeness and moderate alcohol, with higher acidity than usual. Despite the warm and dry summer, they got their biggest crop in 2022; their five hectares of younger vines (15 years old) suffered, but the old vines resisted well. It’s a very spicy, riper vintage.

Published:Nov 21, 2024

93 pts Vinous Media (2021, 2022 NYR)
The 2021 Garnacha Arroyo del Tortolas is sourced from a single vineyard planted in Gredos. It was fermented with whole-clusters and aged for 12 months in used French oak barrels. A bright-ruby-red, its herbal nose also offers sour cherry and oaky notes, with hints of aniseed. Dry and refreshing, this modern, tasty Garnacha has a lean flow. Delicate tannins create a cleansing, lasting finish. – By Joaqun Hidalgo on December 2023

GRAPE: 100% Grenache, practicing biodynamic, 65+ year-old-vines, single vineyard
VINEYARD:The vineyard is a narrow north facing 1.2 hectare steep hillside. The vines are 65 years old. The granitic soil is shallow and poor in organic matter, and therefore very unfertile. The changing features of the soil along the slope, as it comes closer to the Trtolas stream, make us harvest in two stages. This plot is one of the first in ripening of our vineyards.
WINEMAKING: Vinification takes place in wooden tanks with a percentage of stems that depends on the vintage. The wine is trodden daily, either by foot or with the rammer.
AGING: French oak barriques that range from 225 to 600 liters, where the wine remains as long as necessary, always over 11 months.