Vega Sicilia’s most exclusive wine: 3 x 98/100!!
Who isn’t a fan of the fantastic wines from Spain’s most famous winery, Vega Sicilia?
From the superb Rioja wines of Macán to the impressive white wines they make in Tokaj…
But to me, their most exclusive wine is also one of their least known. It is produced at the “mother estate” in Valbuena de Duero (Ribera del Duero), in very small quantities. It is also the wine for which we receive the smallest allocation each year. And I believe this is actually the first time I am really writing about it.
It is both a very traditional wine and a very rare one. Nearly 100 years ago, very few wine estates in Spain actually bottled their own wines. Vega Sicilia was one of them.
It was traditional to produce an Único each year, in other words the wine of the vintage, but also a “Reserva Especial”. And that is the wine we are talking about here. The philosophy behind Reserva Especial is to create the most unmistakably “Vega Sicilia” wine of the estate. And that was already the idea 100 years ago.
It was a blend of the very best wines from recent vintages, the estate’s “house wine”. It reflects the philosophy of Vega Sicilia more than any other wine. This is Vega Sicilia at its most classic, year after year.
Today, almost no wine estates, if any, still produce this kind of wine.
But Vega Sicilia remains true to its history
and still produces its “Reserva Especial” today, although in very limited quantities and, I have to admit, at a rather serious price…
I don’t usually have such expensive tastes, but every year when I taste the new wines, this is my favourite. I like elegant red wines with soft tannins and freshness. And without a doubt, this Reserva Especial is the Vega Sicilia wine where I find those qualities most.
Each year, the wine is a blend of 3 different vintages of the very best Únicos. This makes it the oldest, and therefore the most mature, of all their wines. For example, the 2024 release is made from the 2010, 2011 and 2012 vintages. The oldest Único in this blend is now already 16 years old!
Each year, the
Único Reserva Especial is released with the release year and, in small print, the vintages used in the blend.
You can distinguish it from the regular Único not only by the “Reserva Especial” on the label, but also, and above all, by its opaque bottle.
Unlike the regular Único, the bottle is not made of clear glass. It is always bottled in opaque glass. And as long as I can remember, that has always been the case.
Today, we still have the very last bottles of some older releases of “Único Reserva Especial”. These wines can easily continue ageing well beyond 2040. So you can buy these bottles not only for yourself, but also for your children and grandchildren. They will thank you for it 😉!
So if you are a big fan of Vega Sicilia, but have never tasted this wine and/or do not already have it in your cellar, now is the time… The very last bottles of the 2024 and 2025 releases are still available. And of course, the 2026 as well. On top of that, all three received an excellent 98/100.
These wines come in cases of 3. So if you would like an original wooden case, it is best to buy 3 bottles of the same release. For the 2024 and 2025 releases, these are the last cases available!