x
  • Country ranking ?

    13
  • Producer ranking ?

    2
  • Decanting time

    3h
  • When to drink

    from 2025
  • Food Pairing

    Roast Duck Breast with Dried Cherry Sauce

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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Vega Sicilia Unico 2010 released – 99 points

By Liv-ex

Vega Sicilia, Unico 2010 is being offered by the international trade at a recommended release price of £672 for a case of 3 bottles (75cl), equivalent to £2,688 per 12x75cl. The 2010 release price represents a 7% increase on last year’s 2009 release (£2520 per 12x75cl).

The wine has spent ten years in a range of distinct ageing formats, French and American oak, old and new barrels, with an additional four to five years in bottle before release.

Critic James Suckling reviewed the wine earlier this year, awarding it 99 points. He described it as “still very tight and closed with so much depth and beauty. So drinkable already but better in 2022.”

The 2010 received the highest score over the last decade of releases. However, it is suggested to retail at a price akin to the market price of 2000 (93 points) and 2003 (94 points).

Peter Dean claimed the 2010 is “certainly the best Unico I have tasted.” With the score certainly representing his thoughts, it looks to be a small premium to pay for near perfection.

Vega Sicilia’s ‘second wine’ Valbuena No 5 2015 is also being offered at a recommended release price of £267 for a case of 3 bottles (75cl). According to James Suckling, who awarded it 97 points, the wine is “dense and layered with so much wonderful, complex and succulent character. It just makes you want to drink it”.

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The Story

Of the 1,000 hectares making up the Vega Sicilia estate, 210 are used for wine growing, and there are 19 soil-types divided for management purposes into 52 plots with very specific characteristics. The influence of the flow of the river Duero and the passage of time have been vital in forming these soils.

70 of these hectares are employed to produce Unico. A unique, magical estate which, along with extraordinary management of the vineyard, enables the production of legendary wines.

The Unico ageing process is probably the world's longest, since it runs for at least ten years from the barrel to the bottle. 225-litre barrels of French and American wood, both new and used, and 20,000-litre tanks. A long complex process for a great wine.

The flagship wine Unico is a wine for all eternity. Only a handful of terroirs worldwide are able to match wine's extraordinary ageing capacity. This is a wine of inimitable style, mature, tremendously elegant and silky, in which the ageing process brings the mystique of the essence to the surface.

The qualities of the Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon in different proportions are assembled to perfection in this wine. Each provides a differentiating factor that makes the wine great in every vintage.

The vines are grown on plots where the land is located at the point between the slopes down from the wasteland and the alluvial plain. The soil nearest the surface is made out of fine colluvial deposits from the hillside with small fragment of limestone. There is abundant quartz gravel deeper down in a sandy main soil. There are many angular limestone boulders on the surface.

Red wine made in controlled fermentation using native yeast in wooden tanks. Malolactic fermentation also takes place in wood.  After its fermentation, its goes through what is probably the world's longest ageing of a red wine, almost 10 years between wood and bottle. The different stages take place in different types of barrel: American and French wood, new and used 225-litre barrels, 20,000-litre vats, each batch is what determines the type of wood and the time spent in each container. After the stage in the wood, it is aged in the bottle to complete a long and complex ageing process. It will normally spend 6 years in wood and three in the bottle.

The different elements in its preparation are fine-tuned in the search of the master line that has guided the wine. Único remains true to a clear and well-defined style, with an inimitable character and style; elegance, strength, ageing capacity... A unique and timeless taste that has elevated it to among the aristocracy of the great classic wines.

It offers an infinite complexity that is gradually revealed, in every sip, the palate immensely silky and elegant, and has an ageing capacity that only a handful of wines in the world can claim.

Bodegas Vega Sicilia Unico is still “a prophet in its own land”, Spain, and only a small part of the production leaves the country to be sold abroad. The production of Unico varies from 30.000 to 100.000 bottles depending on the year. The commercial success of Unico is nevertheless decided beforehand regardless of the amount produced, since each vintage is already sold out before the bottling. Yet 700 people are queuing for Unico´s customer list hoping that some of the customers of long standing would give up their place, or forget to order anything for two years, which automatically drops them from the list. The list of the privileged subscribers does not exceed 4,000, and they naturally remain anonymous. Pablo Alvarez, manager of Vega Sicilia, is conscientious when it comes to impartiality towards long standing loyal customers, even though the balance between the company´s firm commercial policy and influential quarters wanting wines outside its customer list is not always easy to maintain.

For example, when Queen Elizabeth II visited Spain a few years ago, the British Embassy wanted Vega Sicilia to represent Spain´s wine tradition at the dinner arranged to honour the Queen. Although the order had been duly placed and at decent notice, the estate was able to deliver only four cases for the dinner, of course with all manner of apologies for not having been able to meet the order in full.
Respecting loyal customers has been a matter of tremendous importance for Bodegas Vega Sicilia throughout its history. When Jesús Anadón was the estate steward the United States´ importer paid a visit and told him that in his faraway homeland the demand was more than 200.000 bottles. As he determinedly insisted that his order be multiplied, the inimitable Jesús stated without blinking an eye that the limit was 500 bottles and no more, and this was his last word.

Unico is a unique wine, and one of the great Spanish classics. It is the signature wine of Vega Sicilia and is taken from some of the oldest vines available. The wine is mostly Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon.
– The Unico wine is produced only in exceptional years, that is, in the course of one decade two or three vintages are "sacrificed" in order to maintain the high quality. It is right that the effect of the harvest is present in each wine: then the -81, -74, -75, -66. -65 and -62 are Unicos in aromatical complexity reaching baroque extremes and the -70, -89, -62, -42 and -22 ones are based on the tannic power reaching to be perpetual wine” , said Mr. Alvarez to me when we asked his personal opinion best vintages of Unicos

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Vintage 2010

RIOJA 2010 – Excellent Vintage

The Rioja Control Board has officially rated the 2010 vintage ‘Excellent’. This is the result of a strict rating process involving testing and tasting more than four thousand samples of the 284.29 million litres of wine made in this vintage. This result confirms the high expectations prompted by the high quality of the grapes picked during harvest and subsequent winemaking process, pointing to the possibility of 2010 becoming one of Rioja’s historic vintages. The key lies in very favourable weather —which allowed for an excellent state of health of the vines until the end of the growth cycle and very moderate production figures— plus all the dedication and professionalism of growers and winemakers. In the last decade only three vintages earned the ‘Excellent’ rating —2001, 2004 and 2005— while the last four have been rated ‘Very Good’.

The rigorous approval process —which sets Rioja apart from other DOs in Spain, as befits its special condition of ‘Calificada’— provides detailed information on the quality of all wines made from every vintage. Each tank of wine in each bodega is sampled, providing highly reliable figures for the final vintage rating issued by the Rioja Control Board. This final rating is obtained through statistical calculations to ensure complete objectivity. The Control Board has been tightening the requirements of global vintage ratings in recent years, with the aim of maintaining Rioja’s position as a benchmark on the quality wine market.

The 2010 Vintage approval and rating process began in November. Samples were taken in all winemaking bodegas by Control Board overseers. Samples must be taken from batches of no more than 100,000 litres. The samples were then analysed at the laboratories of one of the DO’s three Oenological Research Stations and assessed by a tasting committee consisting of three professional wine tasters. These belong to the Control Board’s external tasting panel consisting of over one hundred experts. The procedures used for sensorial assessment are strictly regulated and the anonymity and confidentiality of all samples tasted are strictly maintained.

A total of 4,008 samples were submitted before the 31 March deadline. Each sample had to pass rigorous analytical and sensorial tests before earning the right to be protected by the Designation. A total of 255.08 million litres (14.49 white, 13.56 rosé and 227.03 red) —plus an additional 5.92 million litres that constitute the qualitative stocks— were approved, while 44 samples (1.56 million litres) were rejected because of analytical or sensorial shortcomings. This is a small percentage in view of the strictness with which rating criteria are applied and clearly an indication of the quality of this vintage. The remaining part of the 277.91 million litres submitted for approval was rejected because of excessive production yields.

 

Development of the 2010 growing season

According to the report of the Control Board Technical Service, the general development of the vineyards in 2010 was very good across the Wine Region. The growing season proceeded without any significant incidents —including pests and diseases— that might affect production either quantitatively or qualitatively. Excellent canopy development and plant health until the end of the growing cycle ensured normal development compared to the previous year, when the growing season was about ten days ahead of the average.

During the dormant period rainfall across the Wine Region provided sufficient water for the growing season, ranging from 194 litres in Aldeanueva de Ebro to 400 litres in Leza de Álava. Budburst began normally in late March, with 100% buds by early June and normal fertility rates and cluster figures in all varieties —albeit somewhat higher than the previous year for Tempranillo and Viura and lower for Garnacha. Canopy development and plant health was generally good at this time.

Flowering and fruit set were slightly delayed taking place during the month of June. Setting was good, with a predominance of medium-large clusters. The Garnacha vines experienced irregular fruit set and vineyards at higher altitudes also set irregularly across the board. In the last days of July, in the Wine Region’s earliest developing areas, veraison had reached 40% of Tempranillo vines and 10% of Garnacha plants, while it had not started in other grape varieties.

The weather continued to be dry throughout the month of August, with irregular temperatures, alternating cool days with very hot days. For Tempranillo, veraison did not conclude until mid-month in the earliest areas and until the end of the month in the latest-ripening areas. At the end of August, the vineyards showed good overall canopy development and plant health, coping well with the lack of rainfall, although those vineyards located in arid and stony areas began to experience some basal defoliation.

Harvest began on 1 September in the town of Aldeanueva de Ebro with the white grape varieties, that came in good health and an alcohol potential between 13% and 14%. In the first fifteen days of September, few vineyards were picked, and it was not until the end of the month that harvest became widespread in Rioja Baja, gradually starting up in the rest of the Wine Region. Good weather at the beginning of October allowed for higher picking rates, leading to a selective harvest, with slower ripening in areas where yields were higher. The testing parameters in vineyards at higher altitudes evolved faster, as there had been less water stress and, since fruit set had been irregular, the clusters were looser.

Moderate rains around 10 October slowed down the harvest in the middle and higher areas of the Wine Region, with a positive effect on those vineyards that had been affected by the long drought. In the following days, stable weather, low night-time temperatures and mild daytime temperatures, allowed pickers to step up their work, as the grapes arrived at the crush pads in very good health. The grape harvest ended on 31 October with a total figure of 395 million kilos of grapes (33M kg of white grapes and 362M kg of red grapes).

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Tasting note

color

Medium, Ruby red and Clear

ending

Long, Flavorful and Lingering

flavors

Leather, Spice, Cherry, Toasty, Mineral and Herbs

nose

Intense, Complex, Refined and Pure

recommend

Yes

taste

Average in Acidity, Warming, Medium tannin, Perfectly balanced, Concentrated, Multi-dimensional, Developing, Full-bodied, Focused, Vivid, Refined, Dry and Silky tannins

Verdict

Fine and Sophisticated

Written Notes

Deep ruby red colour. Intense and bit reserved spicy and leathery nose with some black fruits and smoky mineral tones. Full-bodied, vivid acidity, gentle tannic structure, black fruits and plums, delicate spiciness in the lingering mineral finish with some mocha notes. At its best in 2025-2035. Decant for 8 hours and serve at 17-18°C. – JL 94 (May 2023)

  • 94p

Robust and powerful reds are full-bodied or very full-bodied wines that have rich flavours. Due to oak maturation, you can discern powerful spicy notes. High tannins lend these wines a good structure.

  • 96p

Good looking normal size bottle and in an perfect condition. Colour is cherry red, and looking clear and medium. On the nose it is complex, charming and seductive. The taste is round, elegant, and dry, warming, with medium tannin, with silky tannins, and average in acidity, medium-bodied, with multi-dimensional structure and developing. On the palate it is layered and has mineral, toasty, earthy, herbs, floral, cherry and tobacco flavours. The finish is endless. This wine is masterpiece. I paid around 200-500€ a bottle. Perfectly stored bottles are still very worthy and will last well for another 20-30 years and decant at least 1h before tasting. Good value for money. I do recommend. Great vintage 

  • 99p
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Information

Origin

Valbuena, Ribera el Duero
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