PLACÊT 2019 by PALACIOS REMONDO

Wine description

Terroir

Vinification

Awards

Criticism

Luis Gutierréz, Robert Parker's critic, wrote in 2020:

I also tried the white 2019 Plácet Valtomelloso, just a few days after tasting a final sample of the master blend to be bottled. The wine is 100% Viura, sourced from 34-year-old, organically farmed vines on a gentle slope of Monte Yerga in Alfaro, 50 metres above sea level. It was fermented in oval oak barrels with indigenous yeasts and matured in 2,000-litre oak barrels. It is still very young and delicate, but already harmonious, slightly balsamic and shows the purity and precision that seem to characterise it. It is still quite original and shows good freshness and harmony. It has a pleasant bitter note on the finish. It still needs some time in the bottle to develop more complexity; I think it could evolve in the style of the 2015. At the time of writing, around 17,000 bottles of this wine will have been bottled.

The latest Palacios Remondo wines were tasted as part of Álvaro Palacios' portfolio of wines from Rioja, Priorat and Bierzo. The reviews were published in a separate article, but I have also included them here in the context of the rest of Rioja.

Palacios Remondo is Álvaro Palacios' home winery in Rioja, where he cultivates 100 hectares of vineyards and produces 1.2 million bottles per year. Álvaro was delighted with the quality of the 2018 vintage in the Alfaro zone of Rioja, where they are located. They decided not to bottle Propiedad (it was also not produced in 2014 and 2016). 2018 is a more "normal" vintage after the heat of 2017 and the frost in many regions. In 2018, they returned to the parameters of an earlier vintage - snow in winter, rainy spring and warm summer. This vintage is structured and complete, but with great freshness and elegance, with finesse, with citrus notes that provide length. It has the freshness of the 2016 vintage, but with more structure and power. 2019 was a warmer vintage than 2018, very dry, so a more concentrated vintage. He tells me that it is a very special vintage. 2018 is a year of finesse and 2019 is a year of concentration.