The valley of Atauta is one of the most astonishing little wine regions in the world. It is an isolated area about 100km east of the main area of Ribera del Duero. What you see is a few deserted stone houses, fallen into disrepair, and tens, if not hundreds of family cellars, some as much as 500 years old. Here, simple presses were used, then the wine was stored in the underground cask cellar.
This practice has disappeared now, but what has remained are maybe 100 small vineyards, mostly less than 1ha in size. Viticulturalist Bertrand Sourdais came to this area in 1999, co-founded Dominio de Atauta, and aggregated the fruit, much from vines more than 100 years old. He left in 2010 and formed a number of new wineries based in Soria, not far from there.
The fruit for the flagship winery, Dominio de Es, still comes from Atauta. The wines are rare, but I got my hand on a 2019 Dominio de Es La Mata.
This is a single vineyard wine from a 0.33ha plot. The soil is sand and calcareous rock over clay, altitude over 900 meters. You already notice on the nose, this is a big wine for Tempranillo, although only 13.8% alc. The yield was only 1t/acre in this year. The wine is concentrated, with blackberry and mulberry flavours dominant. French Oak is quite noticeable. It is still an elegant wine, but a bit blocky, with dry tannins.
The highlight is on the front palate, not the back, with a medium to long finish. The wine is clearly too young to drink and is likely to improve with time.
Score for now: 93/+
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