La Danza del Viento Parcela La Isilla

My favorite wine this time was the 2021 La Danza del Viento La Isilla, the single-vineyard red from Cadalso de los Vidrios. It has an ethereal and floral personality that transcends the style of the village. It showcases the vintage with its firm tannins balanced by the tension, length and complexity of the wine. This comes from a vineyard at 860 meters above sea level on very fine sandy soils that they have been recovering since 2013; the grapes were picked in mid-September and fermented with full clusters and a 47-day maceration. It has 2% Cariñena in addition to a majority of Garnacha. The wine matured in 500-liter French oak barrels for 15 months. It has terrific tension, freshness and balance, velvety tannins and a vibrant, symmetric and crystalline finish. It has 13.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.25 denoting very good freshness and 5.56 grams of acidity. This is superb. Only 630 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2023.

The 2020 La Danza del Viento La Isilla comes from a plot in Cadalso de los Vidrios in the lieu-dit, or paraje, that gives the wine its name, La Isilla. It is a 90+-year-old plot on very degraded granite at 860 meters in altitude, and it contains some 2% Cariñena that fermented together with the Garnacha with full clusters and had a 48-day maceration. There are more vineyard in this paraje, but this plot has finer sand and delivers wines with more finesse than the others (some are now used for the village Aguja del Fraile). The wine matured in 225- and 500-liter French oak barrels for 14 months. This is ethereal and perfumed and has a rare combination of elegance, power, grip, fine tannins and a tactile sensation. They got a decent yield in 2020 (Garnacha is finicky and yields can be very irregular), and that also contributes to the balance of the wine. This is pale and aromatic, escaping the more fruit-driven character often found in Cadalso with more complexity, rockrose, resin and plants. It is nuanced, layered, elegant and very long. Delicious! 930 bottles and six magnums were filled in June 2022.