The top cuvée is the 2015 Alto Moncayo Aquilon, 100% Garnacha that’s mostly barrel fermented and aged in 10% larger oak American Hogshead and 90% in new French oak. It tastes like the straight Alto Moncayo, just slightly more concentrated, pure, and polished. Black raspberries, crème de cassis, toasted spices, chocolate, and crushed flower notes all give way to a full-bodied, ethereally textured, seamless, yet power-packed beauty that I’d be thrilled to drink anytime over the coming decade or more.

I tasted two vintages of the top of the range side by side, the 2015 Aquilón and the 2016, and I cannot say I found many nuances or differences between the two or even with the rest of the range. The ripe Garnacha produced juice with 16% alcohol that matured in brand-new French and American oak barrels for two years, and during that time the wine seems to have extracted plenty of aromas, flavors and tannins from the new wood to make them overtly oaky and very similar. The 2015 seems to have polished a little the creamy notes that were more evident in the younger 2016, but other than that, I'm sure there's a section of the drinking population that loves this style, but I find it increasingly more and more difficult to enjoy wines like these. That's without mentioning the price! Perhaps I'm wrong and these wines will be fantastic in 50 years' time, but from my experience, if wines are over-oaked, they remain over-oaked forever. - Luis Gutiérrez