Phinca El Vedao Garnacha

Phinca El Vedao is Bodegas Bhilar's case for Garnacha in Elvillar. The house says the grape once thrived in the region and was largely pushed out, centuries ago, by more predictable varieties. The fruit comes from estate parcels in El Vedao, a paraje of Elvillar where, by Bhilar's account, Garnacha still grows in greater concentration.

Garnacha is fussy at flowering and often sets a small crop, which is why this stays a limited release: 1,824 bottles of the 2020, each one numbered. The vines are dry-farmed, organic and biodynamic, and worked by horse. They sit at around 500 metres on shallow limestone, clay and sand. Bhilar credits the village's cooler climate and its limestone for the shape of the wine.

In the cellar the whole clusters were trodden by foot into concrete and left to ferment on their native yeasts. Then came a long, patient ageing: twelve months in 500-litre French oak, twenty more in foudre, and a final six back in concrete. Bottling came more than three years after the harvest.

Bhilar's own account of 2020 is of a season of extremes. A rainy November and a warm winter brought budbreak in March, then cold, wet weeks slowed everything down. Storms in May and heavy rain set off mildew, which cut yields. A tropical summer gave way to cold at the end of August, and the sharp temperature swings held back ripening. The grapes were picked by hand in early October, with heavy sorting. The house says its 2020 wines, above all those from older vineyards, show real depth and concentration, though yields across the range were much lower.