Casa Castillo Las Gravas Monastrell, Jumilla

Casa Castillo Las Gravas Monastrell is majority Monastrell with some old vine Grenache filling in the mid-palate, this is a personal favourite. Grown on limestone flecked with clay and gravel, this is a full-bodied wine that meshes the incongruous virtues of power and finesse, the marks of greatness. Perhaps it is the magic of the gravel quotient that one can barely call soil, such is its meagre nature. The ancient approach to foot treading in stone lagars resplendent with ambient fermentation and partial whole-bunch, is applied. Ageing is in a mixture of large French format oak, 20% of which is new. The result is a confluence of blue berry, mulberry, damson plum, graphite, sage, wood smoke, iodine and lilac. The tannins, a fluid ripple that tones as much as it drives the flavours long.