Spanish pride: what makes Vega Sicilia wines remarkable

My friends Dina and Sasha have a tradition of opening a bottle of wine every day at 9 pm. This is a time exclusively for the two of them, when they share the day's events, enjoy pleasant music or watch a movie.

I've participated in the "nine o'clock" wine selection more than once and as time went on it became more and more difficult to find something new.

Once my friends invited me to a house-warming party. That evening, Sasha took a bottle of Vega Sicilia out of the cupboard, and my delight was unbounded. Many connoisseurs are after this producer's wine, and I am sure it is one of the greatest wines in the world.

By the way, the word "Sicilia" in the name has nothing to do with the Italian island. This legendary winery is located in northern Spain, in the Ribera del Duero region. The word "Vega" in the name refers to a fertile river valley - in this case the Duero - and "Sicilia" refers to St. Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians. There are villages in Castile and León named in her honor.

The winery was founded in 1864 by Don Eloy Lecanda y Chavez, who was recognized as an innovator of his time. Educated in France, he brought seedlings of famous French grape varieties (including cabernet sauvignon and merlot) from Bordeaux and planted them on Spanish soil alongside the local tempranillo variety. Such an approach was unheard of in 19th century Spain - at the time, the country's wine industry was focused on using local grape varieties. But curiously, in the end, it was the Tempranillo that gave the most outstanding results in this terroir.

By the time of the don's death in 1894, Vega Sicilia's vineyards had grown to half a million vines, and the fame of the unusual wine experiment had begun to spread beyond the region.

In the early 20th century, the winery fell into the hands of the talented winemaker Domingo Garramiola. It was under his leadership that the first vintage of Vega Sicilia in the modern sense appeared - the 1915 vintage. Garramiola created two key wines of the winery - Unico and Valbuena, as well as laid the signature style of production with extremely long aging in barrels.

The 1917 and 1918 harvests won top honors at the 1929 World Fair in Barcelona, after which these wines became the talk of the town.

Legend has it that the owners of the bodega themselves decided to whom to sell their rare wine, personally compiling a list of lucky winners. This policy only fueled the excitement: for decades Vega Sicilia was surrounded by an atmosphere of secrecy and exclusivity, and bottles of this wine became a gift for the chosen few. The famous British wine critic Hugh Johnson even compared Vega Sicilia to Château Latour.

In other words, Vega Sicilia has earned a reputation as a wine that can rival legendary French châteaux while retaining a distinctly Spanish character.

The flagship wine of the winery is Unico. The name speaks for itself: it is an extra-class Gran Reserva, the hallmark of Vega Sicilia.

It is not made every year: if the vintage does not meet the highest standards, it will be canceled altogether. The wine is made from grapes from the oldest vines on the estate. The classic blend is about 80% Tempranillo and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. Unico is aged for about 10 years, and sometimes even longer, so each release turns into a real event in the world of wine.

Vega Sicilia Unico Reserva Especial deserves special mention - a unique drink even by the standards of this winery. It is a blend of several Unico wines from different years, carefully blended and additionally aged together. In one bottle of Reserva Especial, wines from vintages several decades apart can meet. This multi-layered assemblage is only produced in exceptional years and in limited quantities. It is traditionally offered only to regular customers and collectors of the estate, and even then by personalized mailing.

The farm has a second wine, Valbuena 5°, whose name indicates five years of aging.

One of the main features of Vega Sicilia has always been the unusually long aging of the wines before release. Winemakers keep it in cellars for years, or even decades, until they consider it perfect.

For example, in 1991 the estate organized an unprecedented release of two old vintages at once: the wines of 1968 and 1982, aged for 23 years and nine years respectively, were simultaneously released on the market. This commitment to long aging was extremely atypical for Spain, but it allowed to create a unique style of Vega Sicilia - these are dense and complex wines, showing the development of flavor with long storage.

Not surprisingly, demand has always far exceeded supply. For many years these wines were distributed by closed subscription, and even today in Spain itself there is a waiting list for those wishing to partake of the legendary vintages. A place on the list cannot be bought - it can only be inherited or obtained by recommendation.

A new round of Vega Sicilia's history began in 1982, when the winery was acquired by the Alvarez family. It is noteworthy that in the same year the Ribera del Duero region received the official status of DO (Denominación de Origen), as if to consolidate a new stage in the development of winemaking in these places.

The company is now known as Tempos Vega Sicilia and owns several estates: in 1991, the Alión winery was founded near the historic estate, where Tempranillo is made in a more modern style. In 1993, the company acquired vineyards in Hungary's famous Tokaj region and founded Tokaj-Oremus. In 1997, the Alvarezes launched the Pintia project in the Toro region, aiming to show that great wines can be made here too. Finally, in 2004, the Alvarezes joined forces with Baron Benjamin de Rothschild to create the Macán winery in Rioja.

This is how a once singular farm became an international wine house.

In 2024, Vega Sicilia became the first Spanish winery to top the authoritative Liv-ex Power 100 world ranking. It displaced the houses from Burgundy from the top. This index is determined annually by experts of the wine exchange, it reflects the total impact of the brand on the market (sales volumes, price dynamics and demand among collectors). Apparently, the reason for this is uncompromising quality at a relatively affordable price, compared to similar Bordeaux and Burgundy masterpieces.

Now, according to Wine-Searcher, the average price of a bottle of the flagship Unico is about $500, which puts it among the most expensive Spanish wines. And in 2022, at an auction in Switzerland, a complete collection "vertical" set of 36 bottles of Vega Sicilia Unico was sold for an impressive $116 thousand.

That said, CEO Pablo Alvarez does not encourage turning wine solely into an investment: "I want my wines to be drunk and enjoyed, and then bought again to drink with pleasure again."

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor