Award Winning Wines | Autumn

2019 Mendoza, Argentina

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James Suckling 100 Points

A compact and polished Cobos with lots of dark fruit, as well as green olives, flowers and stems. Raspberries and forest fruit, too. Full-bodied, very tight and compressed. Melted tannins give great presence and mouth-feel, but the feeling is that they are invisible. It goes on for minutes. Sensational. So sophisticated and thoughtful. An archetypal malbec from Argentina. Better after 2027. 100 Points, JS, March 2022.

2021 South Australia, Australia

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James Halliday 93 Points

A deep ruby. Cracked pepper, cardamon and thyme. Plenty floral, too, once the glass is given a workout. The tannins, big -boned and finely articulated, serve to splay the spiced complexities across the refined latticework, from attack to long finish. A rich wine, but cagey, reticent and nicely standoffish in the mouth. Each glass reveals a different nuance as a result. 93 Points, NG(MW) September 2022.

2020 South Australia, Australia

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 97 Points

The fruit for the 2020 Where Eagles Dare Shiraz is from the Mattschoss Vineyard in the Eden Valley. One assumes the title refers to the great elevation at which this vineyard is situated; 550 meters above sea level is a commanding perch. The dirt up there is pink quartz pressed into ironstone, and it's compacted into all the dirt roads you care to drive down. It's a beautiful thing, actually. Aromatically, the wine offers up sumac, biltong and mulberries with a graphite, crushed lead-pencil character. The wine is minerally and layered with black tea, spring flowers, red apple skins and a raft of forest berries. Really smart, and a decant is going to open this up untold. 97 Points, EL, September 2022.

2021 Stellenbosch, South Africa

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Tim Atkin South Africa Report 2022 92 Points

Haarlem to Hope is a separately fermented cuvée of Chenin Blanc and 30% Semillon which has not featured Muscat since 2020. Aged in older oak, stainless steel and concrete, it has aromas of beeswax and sourdough bread, nuanced oak spices and flavours of aniseed, pear and lemon butter. 2022-27. 92 Points, TA, September 2022.

2021 Catalunya, Spain

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 93 Points

The white 2021 Cargol Treu Vi has notes of pollen and yellow fruit with some browning apples. It has contained ripeness and 12.4% alcohol with a very low pH and high-ish acidity but comes through as more evolved and somewhat riper than the phenomenal Principia Mathematica form this same vintage. It has pungent flavors and a medium-bodied palate, with some spice from aging in 300-liter barrels for 10 to 11 months. 2,100 bottles were filled in August 2022. 93 Points, LG, September 2022.

Jerez, Spain

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 98 Points

The NV La Bota de Amontillado Bota Punta 109 is a very old wine they selected from the cooperative of Trebujena that had never been bottled before. The cooperative was created in 1970, but one of the members had these butts from before; their history was really unknown, but the wine has a profile of coastal Amontillado (from Sanlúcar or Trebujena) with less glycerin, sharp and saline, not as sharp or as bitter as the iconic NPI but with crazy numbers—alcohol, acidity, dry extract and everything. It's very intense but very balanced. An amazing wine that should live forever. It was bottled into 1,200 half bottles (one bota) in October 2021. 98 Points, LG, September 2022.

Jerez, Spain

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 97 Points

As they run out of 98 pretty quickly, they soon bottled a similar NV La Bota de Oloroso Bota NO 108, another butt from the same group, which has a more civilized nose, with hints of orange and somehow gentler (relatively speaking) and polished. Each barrel is different and the wines are so old, so this specific one seems to have a softer personality but is still pungent and powerful. These wines, as they are aged in Trebujena, cannot be labeled as sherry, but in the future that should change. They filled 1,200 half bottles in October 2021. 97 Points, LG, September 2022.

Jerez, Spain

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 98 Points

The new bottling of the extraordinary saga of old Manzanilla Pasada 10, 30, 59 and 90 is the NV La Bota de Manzanilla Pasada 110 Capataz Cabo, from a solera filled with wine from Sanlúcar, mostly from the Pago Miraflores, that averages 10 years under flor and a further five years topped up with wine taken from all or most of the barrels in the solera. This bottling has resulted in a very balanced wine with intensity, freshness, complexity and drinkability, very difficult attributes to combine. This is the most complex and nuanced of Manzanilla Pasada before turning into Amontillado. It has gobsmacking precision and purity, defined and clean, laser cut like a diamond. This could be the most elegant and precise of all the bottlings of this wine. Cuts like a knife? No, cuts like a scalpel! 3,200 bottles produced. It was bottled in February 2022. 98 Points, LG, September 2022.

Jerez, Spain

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 95 Points

The next bottling after the number 93 is the NV La Bota de Manzanilla 113, which has strong green olive and brine aromas, but it's going for a fresher style and profile, austere and dry and still aged seven years or so under flor. The palate is super dry and long. This is the follow-up to edition 93 that started this new path of more freshness and drinkability but respecting the authenticity of the wines. This is a bit tight, possibly because of the recent bottling. 5,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2022. 95 Points, LG, September 2022.

2021 Jerez, Spain

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 92 Points

I found a very young and tender 2021 La Bota de Florpower 114 MMXXI that was bottled 15 days before I tasted it. It has notes of green apples that are browning, but apparently all the Florpower wines suffer from bottling and need time. The palate shows the chalky texture, and it's what you have to check with a wine like this. It's difficult to read right now, but I'm optimistic about its development, in the style of 2018; but it's still a bit of a question mark. 4,000 bottles were filled in June 2022. 92 Points, LG, September 2022.

Jerez, Spain

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 98 Points

The NV La Bota de Amontillado Bota Punta 109 is a very old wine they selected from the cooperative of Trebujena that had never been bottled before. The cooperative was created in 1970, but one of the members had these butts from before; their history was really unknown, but the wine has a profile of coastal Amontillado (from Sanlúcar or Trebujena) with less glycerin, sharp and saline, not as sharp or as bitter as the iconic NPI but with crazy numbers—alcohol, acidity, dry extract and everything. It's very intense but very balanced. An amazing wine that should live forever. It was bottled into 1,200 half bottles (one bota) in October 2021. 98 Points, LG, September 2022.

Jerez, Spain

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 98 Points

The NV La Bota de Amontillado Bota Punta 109 is a very old wine they selected from the cooperative of Trebujena that had never been bottled before. The cooperative was created in 1970, but one of the members had these butts from before; their history was really unknown, but the wine has a profile of coastal Amontillado (from Sanlúcar or Trebujena) with less glycerin, sharp and saline, not as sharp or as bitter as the iconic NPI but with crazy numbers—alcohol, acidity, dry extract and everything. It's very intense but very balanced. An amazing wine that should live forever. It was bottled into 1,200 half bottles (one bota) in October 2021. 98 Points, LG, September 2022.

Jerez, Spain

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 97 Points

As they run out of 98 pretty quickly, they soon bottled a similar NV La Bota de Oloroso Bota NO 108, another butt from the same group, which has a more civilized nose, with hints of orange and somehow gentler (relatively speaking) and polished. Each barrel is different and the wines are so old, so this specific one seems to have a softer personality but is still pungent and powerful. These wines, as they are aged in Trebujena, cannot be labeled as sherry, but in the future that should change. They filled 1,200 half bottles in October 2021. 97 Points, LG, September 2022.

2018 Douro, Portugal

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Robert Parkers The Wine Advocate 95 Points

95 Points