Dominio Aguila, Ribera del Duero, Canta Perdiz 2019

I tasted two vintages of the single-vineyard Canta la Perdiz, from the vineyard that they consider to produce their most elegant red. The youngest of the two, the 2019 Canta la Perdiz was cropped from a warm and dry year, fermented with indigenous yeasts in concrete with full clusters and a slow malolactic in barrel (seven months) and then spent 35 months in French oak barrels. It has a very expressive nose that is open and immediate, with polished tannins and surprisingly integrated oak after such a long élevage. It's a vintage of pleasure and juiciness but with serious structure and depth, and it is very harmonious and balanced with fine-grained chalky tannins. It has 14.5% alcohol and a pH of 3.55 denoting good freshness. 1,847 bottles and 30 magnums produced. It was bottled in September 2022.