COMANDO G ‘RUMBO AL NORTE’ 2017
Comando G
$349.99
https://apexwinesolutions.com/products/comando-g-rumbo-al-norte-2017
99 pts Robert Parker Wine Advocate
"I was very much looking forward to tasting the 2017 Rumbo Al Norte from bottle, a wine I had tasted a number of times during its upbringing in a 1,400-liter oak foudre, as it comes form one of the most spectacular vineyards I know, not only in Gredos, but in the whole of the world! It’s a 0.3-hectare plot in the zone known as La Breña within the village of Villanueva de Ávila, where the granite soils are very sandy and rich in quartz and gray silt and the wines have a rare combination of elegance and power as well as an ethereal quality with tons of energy and a texture that is like liquid granite. It was produced like the rest of the reds, with a long infusion with full clusters and indigenous yeasts in oak vats, then matured in a 1,400-liter oak vat for 14 months. This vineyard escaped the frost and hail of the vintage—it’s one of the few that was really untouched—and this year, the wine is head and shoulders above the rest. It’s complex and elegant, very Burgundian, stony, floral and spicy, and the good yields controlled the ripeness of the dry year. This is the vineyard that behaves better in warmer/drier years. The good news is that there are 1,656 bottles and 60 magnums of this—their largest production ever—and it was bottled in March 2019. Unfortunately, prices for this scarce bottling are skyrocketing. It was only a matter of time…
Comando G continues to serve as the reference point in Gredos. Most of the 2018s are not in bottle yet, so I mostly tasted wines from 2017—a challenging year with hail and frost that made it impossible to bottle some of the single-vineyard wines (Breña and Tamboril Tinto) and affected others, mainly the vineyards in the village of Rozas de Puerto Real. 2017 was also ripe and dry, more in line with 2012 than 2015, as the wines also have finesse and lightness. Once again Rumbo al Norte is the best wine, but in the challenging 2017 vintage, the difference from the others is even more obvious because the plot didn’t suffer hail or frost and is one of the best-prepared to withstand dry conditions. It’s a wine that transcends the vintage."
- Luis Gutierrez, Robert Parker Wine Advocate