Vega Sicilia is the jewel in the crown of Spain's Ribera del Duero, with a waiting list for its wines, despite their high price tags
The low-slung hardwood table in front of us was immaculately laid out with crisp white linen and a range of glistening Riedel glasses. On the table were a number of bottles. We took our appointed places. Welcome to Vega Sicilia, fabled star of the Ribera del Duero since 1864, home to some of the greatest Spanish wines - and, it turned out, a couple from Hungary as well.
Outside, the autumn sun warmed the faces of the security guards scattered around the huge state-of-the-art complex where the wine is made before being aged in barrels that are constructed and toasted to order on the spotless premises. In Vega Sicilia as little as possible is left to chance. Nature can, and has, disrupted this quality control, but it would need to be a disastrous vintage, such as the frost-cursed 2001, for this most venerable of wineries not to deliver its signature wine, the Único.
Out host for the tasting was the export director, Purificación Mancebo Lobete, an engaging young woman who spent seven summers from the age of 13 learning English in Bray, Co Wicklow. Puri, as she is mercifully known, is not exactly staying awake at night wondering where she will sell her next bottle. Of the 90,000 or so bottles of Único produced each year (the total depends on the vintage), 75 per cent are sold in Spain, with the rest going overseas in extremely limited parcels. There is, she says, a waiting list to join the select group of 4,000 clients who are offered the wine each year. (She said that the "A" list rarely changes, even through generations; customers lose their place if they don't order for successive years or, quite reasonably, if they don't pay.) At €175 a bottle for the current vintage, that is a significant commitment.
We tasted the Único 1996, a huge, brooding muscular monster of intense dark fruit and imperious structure. A blend of 80 per cent Tempranillo and 20 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon, it is clearly in its infancy, but already it is showing the class to justify Puri's description of it as "a most important vintage". This wine has just been released after spending seven years in oak barrels and three years in bottle, and it has a long life ahead of it. For the traditional Único there is no shortcut to greatness.
If the Único is the seasoned old gentleman of the estate, the Valbuena 2002, ostensibly the second wine, is the pushy, extrovert son. This, Puri said, was a difficult vintage and though the wine has a rich, berry intensity, there were disconcerting green notes. But it is certainly a more approachable wine.
Vega Sicilia's owners, the Alvarez family, have seen the Ribera's fortunes rise around them over the past 20 years - everywhere you go there is evidence of new investment and new wineries - and they, too, have put resources into new projects. The Alión, from a nearby estate, is among the most successful and the 2003 is a beautiful example of the sort of smooth, classy wine being produced in the Ribera. Powerful yet reserved, rich in fruit, but lean in structure, the Alión 2003 is a model of a top-class modern Ribera del Duero wine.
Bookending the above wines was Oremus Tokaji Mandolas 2003, a generously rich and intense dry white wine, and Oremus Tokaji 1999, a hugely seductive dessert wine, with honey and orange peel notes. Both are made from the Furmint grape. During the early 1990s Vega Sicilia invested in the former Communist state and the vineyard there is now repaying that faith with handsome wines at surprisingly reasonable prices.
Vega Sicilia, Alión and Oremus wines are distributed in Ireland by Searsons Wine Merchants, 6a Monkstown Crescent, Co Dublin, 01-2800405, www.searsons.com.