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2012 Único, Vega Sicilia, Ribera del Duero, Spain
- Red
- Dry
- Full Bodied
- Tempranillo
Ready - youthful
(Drink 2023 - 2053)
- Sarah Jane Evans MW
- 95/100
- Luis Gutiérrez
- 96/100
- James Suckling
- 97/100
- Tim Atkin MW
- 98/100
Product: 20128004745
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Description
Delightfully fine on the nose, rich, dark, spicy Tempranillo fruit, intense and complex with notes of raspberries, black, berry fruit, smoke, sarsaparilla and grilled meat. Even more impressive still on the palate, a feast for the senses with red and black berry fruit all wrapped up in the most elegant and refined of structures. Linear, energetic and focused, this is incredibly impressive, balanced by crisp acidity and the finest of fine-grained tannins. A real iron hand in a velvet glove on the long, satisfying finish. Spain’s one Grand Cru.
Chris Pollington, Senior Account Manager, Berry Bros. & Rudd
Colour Red
Sweetness Dry
Vintage 2012
Alcohol % 14.5%
Maturity Ready - youthful
(2023 - 2053)
Grape List Tempranillo
Body Full Bodied
Producer Vega Sicilia
Critics reviews
Sarah Jane Evans MW 95/100
A textbook example of controlled, red fruited elegance, though more restrained perhaps than the glorious 2009. Undoubtedly a big, generous wine, with sumptuously ripe fruit, vibrant with redcurrants and fine cedar. The essence of Unico is its ageing, and as a result the tannins are well matured and despite its years it retains a youthful freshness. The wine spent 18 months in barriques and then a further three and a half years in 220hl tinas vats), followed by extensive bottle ageing.
Drink 2021 - 2031
Luis Gutiérrez 96/100
The 2012 Único is released 10 years after the harvest. They produced it with the grapes from 40 of the 210 hectares of vineyards they have, with a total of 55 separate plots and 19 different soils. It's mostly 95% Tinto Fino Tempranillo) and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon grapes that are cooled down for 24 hours and then fermented in oak vats with indigenous yeasts. Malolactic fermentation was in stainless steel and the aging in 225-liter oak barrels and 20,000-liter oak vats for a long time as this was bottled in June 2018.
2012 is a concentrated year, warm and dry with some rain at the end of September that helped the end of the ripening process of healthy grapes with lots of color and ripe tannins. The wine has a ripe nose, with intoxicating notes of black fruit, fresh meat and blood, a spicy touch from the American oak and an earthy twist. It's a voluptuous and decadent vintage for Vega Sicilia, for those that favor years like 2006, a bit atypical, or 1999.
The wine finished with 14.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.88 and 5.1 grams of acidity tartaric). 88,188 bottles, 3,537 magnums, 328 double magnums, 55 imperials and five Salmanazar produced.
Drink 2024 - 2035
James Suckling 97/100
Berry, smoke, violet and sandalwood aromas follow through to a full, layered palate that shows super polished tannins that are caressing and long. It’s tight and very long. Give it two or three years to soften.
Drink after 2023
Tim Atkin MW 98/100
The latest in a superb run of Único releases, the 2012 is a finely judged cuvée of Tinto Fino and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon from vineyards on the south side of the Duero river with a northerly aspect. There's no sign of the heat of the vintage here on a wine that is poised, complex and self-assured. Floral, mature and nicely evolved, with fine French and American oak, graceful tannins and a hint of graphite. One of Spain's greatest reds
Drink 2021 - 2037
About this wine
Ribera del Duero
Ribera del Duero has transformed from a little-known region into one of Spain’s most celebrated wine heartlands in just a few decades. Once recognised solely as the home of Vega Sicilia, it now boasts over 200 ambitious wineries crafting some of the country’s most powerful, polished, and age-worthy reds. Today, Ribera stands shoulder to shoulder with Rioja, offering wines of equal prestige but with a distinct, thrilling personality of their own.