2019 Vizcarra "Celia", Ribera del Duero, Spain

ABOUT THIS WINE

Celia is a limited-production, single vineyard wine of 2,000 bottles, made only in the very best vintages. Named for Juan Carlos’ eldest daughter, this wine combines power and elegance in the distinctive manner of the best Ribera del Duero wines. After careful bunch selection from the vineyard's best vines, the best berries are selected for this wine. Then go into new, 400L open-top barrels (50%) and concrete tanks (50%) for maceration and also, for alcoholic and malolactic fermentation. Malolactic fermentation takes place for 25 days with pumping over three times per day. Celia is aged for 18 months in 95% French and 5% American oak barrels with the last 2 months in foudre. During this period, the wine is racked only once. The wine is bottled without any filtration or cold stabilization. Grilled rare or medium rare lamb chops are a perfect match, as well as grilled grass-fed beefsteak or pork tenderloin with rosemary.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

Juan Carlos Vizcarra is a man of intensity, passion, and incredible ambition. Though his family has grown grapes in northern DO Ribera del Duero for more than four generations, he was the first to make estate-bottled wine from this fruit starting in 1991. The story goes that when he was a boy, he noticed that the historic estates of Vega Sicilia and Pesquera would come to his family in bad vintages to buy fruit. Realizing that his family must have truly special vineyards of the highest quality, Juan Carlos took it upon himself to begin producing wines to express this blessed terroir and heritage. Like all the wines at the tiny Bodegas Vizcarra, the flagship JC Vizcarra is made using gravity-fed winemaking to preserve the freshness and elegance intrinsic to the limestone plots found in northern Burgos. Meticulous in everything he does, Juan Carlos applies his detail-oriented approach to every facet of the winemaking process. With painstaking attention paid to every detail from vineyard to bottle in the 10 parcels farmed for JC, Juan Carlos is able to express the elegance and freshness intrinsic to this special land he farms by hand, without the use of chemicals. In the JC bottling, he offers a wine to age, one that will improve with a decade or more in the bottle. He avoids unnecessary over-extraction and heavy oak, preferring instead to let the natural power of Tinto Fino (known elsewhere as Tempranillo) speak for itself. The finesse and power that results is classic Ribera