Tasting Notes
Vinous 98
Glass-staining ruby. Powerful, highly scented aromas of spice-tinged red and blue fruit preserves, pipe tobacco, incense and mocha; a smoky mineral overtone builds as the wine opens up. Alluringly sweet, mineral-laced black raspberry, cherry-vanilla and floral pastille flavors show impressive depth and energy and complementary suggestions of spicecake, candied violet and bitter chocolate. Combines power and delicacy with a steady hand and finishes supple, sweet and extremely long, with gently gripping tannins making a late appearance.
Anticipated maturity: 2025-2038
Wine Advocate 100
I was really looking forward to the 2016 Pingus in bottle, as the sample I tasted last time promised to be one of the best (if not the best!) Pinguses to date. Few (if any) vintages of Pingus have shown such integration of the oak, especially considering the wine is so extremely young. It has precision and symmetry, elegance and austerity à la Audrey Hepburn. This 2016 is like an updated version of the 1996, produced with a lot more knowledge that helped them find this purity, freshness and elegance. Peter Sisseck described it as seamless, and I could only agree. He also said that this is probably his ideal of what the wine from Ribera del Duero should be. The wine was kept in barrel for an extra couple of months and was finally bottled in August 2018; there were 8,100 bottles produced. It delivered all the sample promised, and perhaps a bit more…
Anticipated maturity: 2021-2036
