The 2013 El Terroir was cropped from a cold, rainy and late harvest, as it happened in most of Spain. This is usually a blend of Garnacha from old vines on slightly deeper limestone soils and with an earthy, telluric character. They work with 27 different vineyards all in the village of San Martín de Unx, and they select blind the character of the different micro-vinifications (some 19 of them), and here they use the earthier lots. However, in this slightly lighter vintage, El Terroir shows extremely elegant and this has resulted in a superb vintage of this cuvée, which is always a little more generous and might work better in more austere vintages; having said that, I loved the 2012, which had a more Châteauneuf-du-Pape profile. This 2013 is simply superb and vibrant, with intense limestone minerality. I see very nicely integrated oak in all the wines and in general better transparency and delineation. This has all the ingredients to age nicely in bottle. 26,331 bottles were bottled in June 2015. - Luis Gutierrez