Master of Wine Tim Atkin, Britain’s leading critic of Spanish wines (and one who rarely gives out the highest scores), rates this a whopping 95 points, saying:
Attractive ripe red-plum, fresh earth and savory complexity, leading to a palate that has a succulent, juicy and fleshy array of ripe cherries, berries and plums. The freshness holds amid ripe tannins. Drink or hold.
Suckling also rates this 2018 the best-ever Val Sotillo Beunavista at 93 points:
Aromas of ripe plums and blackberries with hints of baking spices, tar and wet earth. Full-bodied with firm tannins and bright acidity. Tight and chewy, yet with juicy cherry and blueberry fruit character.
And Jancis Robinson, too:
Rich, warm nose. Christmas spices, cooked plums, sloe berries, burnt strawberry jam, menthol. Deep, long woodsy tannins. Beef roast and mushrooms in bacon fat. Tapenade bitterness. Emphatically savoury but not without fruit and in fact the sweetness builds as the wine sits in the glass. Worth decanting this. Traditional, classic, classy, complex. Benchmark Ribera del Duero.
