So, you poured a glass of wine for us. Let's just start with that. Sure, we'll jump right in. This is Jose Pariente Sauvignon Blanc from Rueda, Spain, 2017 vintage. Cool thing about this wine and this winery is we're looking at the third generation of the Pariente family. Verdejo is the primary grape in Rueda. The Sauvignon Blanc here makes up a smaller percentage of acreage. I didn't even realize that they did a varietal Sauvignon Blanc bottling in Rueda. They sure do. Is this a common thing? How long have they been growing Sauvignon Blanc in Spain? Is this a common thing? It is a little bit in Rueda. Across the regions of Spain, when they're penetrating a new market, everyone does Sauvignon Blanc. They want to focus on what makes them different, what they do that no one else is doing. If they were to start in America with, hey, here's our Sauvignon Blanc, our reception would probably be something like- Yeah, we already have those. Yeah, we're like, f*** you, we have those. What else you got? Even in the glass, like this kind of stands apart from a lot of Sauvignon Blancs that I'm familiar with. It seems more floral. It seems less cutting. Would it be a mistake to say this is less acidic than other Sauvignon Blancs? I would say less noticeable acidity. You know, it's very well integrated. It's clean and it's crisp and it's fresh, but you're not getting a lot of that tingle, that kind of tangy feeling sensation that's in the bottom of your jaw that is sometimes associated with a sourness. Yeah, like mouthwatering quality. I don't know how else to describe it. It's not as sharp. Like Greg kind of said, it's soft and it's round. I don't want to call it flabby, but it kind of, it just, the mouthfeel alone doesn't feel like a Sauvignon Blanc I've had before. It's definitely more tame and kind of restrained in style. I think fashioned a little more after a French style, not as round and lush and ripe. So the acidity is there, but like Jon said, you're not perceiving it as fiercely. Kind of a middle ground. While it is leaner than New Zealand, it's not as lean and not as mineral driven as we would see in France. And I think a lot of that is we do have very warm sunny days, long sun in the growing season, but overall a continental climate. When I showed up, my first day was about 60, 70 degrees out there. It was awesome. It was a beautiful Saturday to just be walking around, but my last day was down to 28. So we do see that full shift in temperature. If it isn't clear, today we're talking about Spanish wine, specifically of Rueda and Rivera Del Duero. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg Versch. I do communications at Binny's. In the room with me today is, Barb Stebben. Hey, I'm Barb. I do wine sales. And Pat. I'm Pat Brophy. I do spirits stuff. And joining us today, fresh off his trip to sunny Spain, is Jon Adam, wine manager at the Oak Brook Binny's. What Spain is to me, I sat next to the Spanish wine buyer for a while, and when I was a wine consultant, I thought Spain is as old school as it gets, right? Like growing up, I had Ferdinand, the book, you know, the book, the kid's book. Now it's some chintzy Disney movie, but and everything in the book is so like dusty and old, and you know, old world. But that's not the only thing that's happening in Spain right now. For sure. And it's being led by these regions like Ribera del Duro and Rueda. Definitely. You know, we look at these regions and they are only about 40 years old. Rueda being set up in 1980 and Ribera del Duro in 82. I mean, I assume the wine making tradition in these areas goes back many years or is this something where they kind of recently we've they've kind of figured out that this would be also a good climate for what we're doing over there in Spain? Definitely been around a while. They say that Verdejo has been cultivated in Rueda for about a thousand years. A lot of the vineyards that we went through are a hundred plus years old, which was really one of the most remarkable things I remember seeing stepping out into one of our first vineyard stop and seeing these old, gnarled vines that I always had associated with. Cira, Mvedra, Grenache. You look at it and it looks like you would be pulling out red fruit and these are Verdejo vines. A lot of the vine age is 30 to 40 years old, so there is a cyclical replanting going on to maintain style, freshness. But there are a fair amount of vineyards that really do prize these older vines. One producer, they don't have the exact date of how old their vines are. The first record that they have is that the current owner's great grandfather inherited these vineyards 170 years ago. And at that time, the same vines that are there today that they're using were producing usable quality fruit. What's the elevation there? You will drive through the clouds to get there. Most people will fly in to Madrid. And then as you're going out towards Burgos to get to this region, we're about 6 to 800 meters, really 2,000 to 2,500 feet. And on the right day, you will drive through the clouds. That's amazing. It's beautiful. So Jon, just to give people an idea geographically, say you fly in to Madrid and then when we're going toward Rueda, what part of Spain is that in? It's almost a straight shot north of Madrid, about two to two and a half hours. In Rueda, as a region, what's the most prominent grape? What should the wine noob expect out of this region? Without a doubt, it's Verdejo. Verdejo counts for about 87 percent of the planted vines. The rest would be a little bit Sauvignon Blanc, Palomino Fino, and there is a little bit of red wine production, which is only added to the Dio. Palomino Fino, like the Sherry grape? Is it still white? Used for four of five wines and I believe in a little bit in blends. So you brought a verdejo, can we try it? We brought two verdejos, and yes, let's try them. I wanted to... I'm sorry, my question then, Jon, is why is a region that's good for verdejo also good for Sauvignon Blanc, the continentality? Climate definitely plays into it, soil types as well. The soils here are very sandy, not to jump away from your question, but getting back to the age of the vine, the very sandy soils prevented phylloxera from ever getting into the soils here. That's cool. However, Jon, in the Dio Rueda, can we call it that if it's made with Sauvignon Blanc or must it be made with Verdejo? So any wine in Rueda that is going to be labeled as a varietal needs to be 85%. They are allowed to blend as well. If you get lower than 85% of the varietal, it can just be labeled as Rueda, which would still have to be at least 50% Verdejo. So literally the Dio is identifying by that. Yeah, hitching their cart to that wagon. Yeah, on the back of the label there is a much more precise identification of, you know, this is Verdejo and what that means. This is Sauvignon and what that means. That's good for silly consumers like me who don't have the time to parse and break it down. Let's talk about how this wine smells different than the first wine we passed around, right? So we had a Sauvignon Blanc, now we've got a Verdejo. Do you have anything in particular that jumps out at you? I was going to say banana on the last one and this is like way more amped up with that like fleshy ripe banana quality on the nose. I get a little more peachy and kind of tropical, a little bit of grapefruit, less of that intense lemony lime citrus, but I get more aromatic, just kind of a little more expressive in general. It's definitely not as floral as that first one that Sauvignon Blanc had this floral quality and I thought and I got a little like melon out of it and this one is more, I don't know, it's fruity but it's in a different fruity and I'm having trouble So it's like 15 bucks for the Pariente Sauvignon Blanc. What do you think this Verdejo costs? I would probably, probably around the same 12 to 15 bucks I would guess. Nailed it. It's like 12 bones. 11.99 for the Naia 2017 Verdejo. I think it's really interesting on the palate, the texture of it. It's like steely and grained and almost tannic in a way that white wine often doesn't grip your palate that way. Oh, you guys are doing awesome. I couldn't have written that better. I wanted to show both expressions because in doing blind tastings with friends, I think it's really easy to mistake Sauvignon for Verdejo and Verdejo for Sauvignon, but putting them side by side, it really shows the citrusy side of the Sauvignon and then the white fruits that we see in Verdejo. The big signature I saw after tasting Verdejo all day every day for days was the varietal thing that rings true every time is there's almost a little bit of a fennel character on the end of the finish and Absolutely. And I think that's what really makes Verdejo itself and adds just an infinite versatility when pairing with foods and really mass appeal too. Like, can you think of a food that this won't work with? Chocolate cake. Like cheese, like pizza. This is a white wine that would go with a lot of heartier foods that you usually associate with red wine. This is a good wine. This is interesting. Now, you had briefly touched on earlier about value in Spanish wine. And that's kind of, when I think Spanish wine, I generally think like, oh, I probably get a decent wine for less than 10 bucks. I mean, is that the case with these now? Or I mean, I know Spanish wine has been growing in like the various industry rags and stuff you read. You know, Spanish wine has been growing pretty much globally, right? And it's been continuing to grow in our stores as well. About a dozen year span, I'd say, is sort of a growing, maybe a plateau over the last year or two. But I think whites and sparkling wines especially are still growing, yep. Now with that growth of that category, I mean, we're still getting great value in it though, right? Absolutely. This Jose Pariente Sauvignon Blanc that we tasted, that would be on our shelf at $14.99. Oh, not bad. Which I think offers a lot of bang for the buck. You spend the same amount on some, you know, giant ly mass produced labels. Big name commodities. Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, we won't mention. Yeah. And this is far more interesting. That's the same price. I think that's a good word in general to explain, especially white wines from this region is interesting and complex. To your point about Sauvignon Blanc earlier, that it's usually really high in acidity and piercing in this racing vibrant Verdejo. And especially to Jon's point, depending on how it's treated, which I think we're going to see later. Oh, are we ever? Is a little bit tamer. And while it has the acidity of Sauvignon Blanc, it also has, yeah, that bitterness, the herbaceousness. It's not as one note frequently. So Spain in general offers value, and it offers a lot more just uniqueness across the board from one region to another. And North and North Central Spain, I think a lot of us would argue is especially true. And this has really been a standard on shelves for a number of years now, right, Jon? Like Bodegas Naya, it's there. A lot of folks keep it cold for instant purchase in the summertime especially. It's kind of a no brainer. You want to try the last Rueda here? Holy Lord, I do. So this is labeled Rueda, right? So we know it's 50 plus percent. This is also labeled as Rudejo, and this also comes from Bodegas Naya. This is what they at Naya call Naiades, the 2012 vintage. And I chose this wine for many, many reasons. The first off being, current release of this wine is 2016. We are tasting 2012. When I first smelled this, it almost smelled beer like to me. I don't know if it's just like a citrus thing that I'm so ingrained and associated with hops or something. This is weird. It might be some kind of innocuous yeast. Yeah, maybe. It almost smelled like a hoppy Belgian beer. It smelled more like an old world beer. I mean, not so much anymore. It's a bit like the popcorn quality and a nuttiness, like a salinic nutty quality. Interesting you say nutty. What's that usually an indicator of, Greg? Oxidized wine. Not oxidized wine, oxidative perhaps. Yeah. Oxidized generally not good. Oxidative can be good, right? So what age? Like typical of age or typical of a production style? A little of both, right, Jon? You want to talk to that? Bingo, Greg. By asking a question, he got the question right. So this is the older vines from the same estate. We are looking at about 100 year old vines, showing that these wines, when we are looking at barrel fermented and higher quality vines, these wines can not only last but improve with age. This is really interesting. This tastes stronger too. Is this a higher alcohol percentage on this? The Naiades is 13.5. I guess it's exactly the same. When you say tastes stronger, Pat, what do you mean by that? Where are you getting it? There was a more noticeable presence of ethyl alcohol. So you want to talk about who would like these wines? The Sauvignon Blanc in the first Rueda here that you tasted us, the freshness, you could definitely say somebody who likes that Sauvignon Blanc, possibly Pinot Grigio style. This seems a lot closer to a Chardonnay drinker. Bingo. Boom. And bordering on somebody who's sherry curious. Not only for the Chardonnay drinker, but when this wine first hit the market, this was a lot of people, importers, Psalms, everyone was comparing this to white burgundy. You've got some barrel fermentation, you've got concentration of fruit, you've got power and acid playing together. And the classiness of like tertiary age qualities that... Let me say that less stupidly. Especially on the finish. On the finish. On the finish for sure. And I think that fennel really kind of resonates on the end, showing the varietal signature. Yeah. And so this is labeled as a verdejo, so it's at least 85%, you said? Correct. Yeah. So it has to be at least 85%. Honestly, when someone labels as verdejo in this region, it usually is 100%. OK. You don't want to guess at the price on this one? This is a high quality white wine with all those awesome characteristics like you alluded to, like white burgundy and chardonnay like. I mean, taste alone, I would assume this costs about $40. Yeah. And side by side, if you're talking about some of the white burgundies in those regions, I'd specifically compare it to in Cheson Montrachet or Pouligny Montrachet, you're talking about low 40s into maybe 60 bucks. So that's a fair comparison. And I think it does stand up to its neighbors in that regard. But you are incorrect, my friend. Jon Adam. 25 fat ones. Wow. Yeah. This is a great wine for 25 bucks. I'm really impressed. I always like to treat myself to a bottle of this every summer, one day when I know that I'm off during the week and I give myself a late lunch, early dinner out on the patio. Just take one to the dome. Take the big old bowl of chips, guac, and a bottle of this. This is my me time. Well, this is a great bottle of wine. I can't believe it's only 25 dollars. I mean, to speak to some of the characteristics, we talked about the mouthfeel and the texture is lovely. There's a lot of finesse. It's somehow toasty but not oaky, if that makes any sense. Absolutely. The creaminess, the live texture is there, but this flavor profile is so unique. I agree. I love this in the spring and summer time, and I do it with a piece of meatier fish. It would also be good with macaroni and cheese. I agree with that. Chorizo, mac and cheese. I could really go for some of that right now. I like the idea of chips or chips and guac though too, because that acidity would- Salty and- Yeah, that's banging. You can play with the spice. This wine is all about integration and balance. Is this a wine that we regularly have in stock or is this something? I mean, this is 2012, so they release a vintage of this every year, I assume. We just kind of, only it trickles in or- You know, barrel fermentation does take time. I think current release that's going to be hitting the market this year will be 2016. So, 12 is a little bit behind, but really not all that far. So, for someone who may be listening to this and thinking, okay, that's a cool bottle of 25 bucks, what is the big difference they're going to see in a 2016 bottle versus this 2012 bottle? Great question. And we actually did that at the winery. We had the 2016 and the 2011. The 2016 comes off much more energetic. The acidity is brighter and a little more tingly, but still fades and integrates with the body very nicely. Fruit won't be as developed. You know, you'll get that fresher, a bit less nutty, maybe more barrel spice as opposed to the nutty characters from Oak. Awesome at any age. I had a 2008 not long ago, and even that was just screaming good. Very, very rich. I've had very little aged white wines like that before, so this is all new to me. It's definitely a fun experiment to taste them, yeah, side by side or a fresh release and something like this with even just a few years of bottle age. And to speak to the availability, this is the kind of wine that we wine nerds love to talk about and get behind and we'll buy it for ourselves for late lunch on our patio. It is probably limited in terms of availability on shelves at all of our stores, but likely an item that would be available for special order anywhere. Okay, cool. So Jon, we talk a lot about old vines when we're talking about quality of wine. What's the difference between grapes produced from older vines versus grapes produced from vines that are only five or six or 10 years old? How does it impact the quality of the grapes? And therefore, what character does it impart to the final wine? Regardless of age, a healthy vine is going to draw its nutrients from the soil. An older vine puts out less fruit, so it's spending more time producing less. So that which does end up on the vine really shows the concentration of the vine's work in a smaller picture. Awesome. Really cool. Hey, you want to switch gears and talk about red wine? So how far is Ribera Del Duero from Rueda? Not far at all, they're neighbors. Okay, so a two and a half hour drive from Madrid, but you'd hang a right? Pretty much. I think Ribera is a great place to start people in Spanish wine. You know, we sell so much Cabernet, specifically from California, not to discredit or underappreciate our Bordeaux drinkers, but when people are looking at coming in to try some Spanish wine for the first time, you know, I'll often ask them what do they normally drink. Cabernet is frequently the answer, depending on what kind of style. If they're looking for a more old world Cabernet, I usually will take them to Rioja, but if they prefer California or someone who's doing something more modern with Cabernet, I think Ribera can really offer a similar experience texturally. So many people are coming in saying when they describe what they want in a wine, it's more about texture than about flavor a lot of the time. And so when people are saying I want a smooth cab, these wines from Ribera are often much more plush and round. That makes it an easy recommendation. Yeah, I like that notion that a lot of customers and a lot of newer wine drinkers frequently, I agree, Jon, frequently, they're not saying I'd like a wine that tastes like blackcurrant and vanilla and lead pencil. They're saying I want smooth, I want... So steering them towards a different region like this that's gonna provide that experience is, that's the bread and butter for us wine nerds in the business. I think it could be fun to do a tasting of like Rioja Reserva next to Ribeira Reserva and just really focus on the textural experience and down the line into Crianza as well. Throw some French wines in there for mouse feel. Yes, feel that mouse. This is interesting stuff. Celeste Crianza? Crianza? Crianfa? Crianfa. 2015. Whatever melts your butter. Whatever stirs your Kool-Aid. What's a Crianza? Is that a grape or a style? Aging duration? Absolutely, age statements. In Ribeira, we're looking at a few different styles. Hoven or Roble being less than a year of aging before release. The Crianza gets a minimum of two years age at the winery. And this is age in bottle or age in oak? Both. A Crianza must be at least 12 months in oak. The winery can choose to do combination, could be two years in oak. It has to be at least two years total, and at least one of those has to be in oak. Correct. Okay. Moving after Crianza, we have Reserva, which is a minimum of three years aging with 12 months again in oak. From there, you jump up to Gran Reserva. Gran Reserva is five years age with a minimum of 24 months in oak. So those words appear on other bottles in other regions. Like Rioja, is that the same or is it different restrictions? They're actually different aging requirements. So if you want to memorize all of it, you have to memorize two separate sets of Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva. However, the principle is the same, which is we release our wines when we feel they're ready to be consumed. Like aged to maturity. Correct. Oh, so this is, you take this home and drink it, you don't stick it in the basement. So it's already like been aged to perfection, yeah. And that's not to say they can't continue to age is something will taste that I brought from my own personal stash that I've been holding on to for a handful of years. But a lot of producers also do choose to go longer. One of the wineries we were at in Rivera decided to hold back their 2010 but do a simultaneous release of their 09 and their 2011 because it was just their time. So in both major regions for red wine production in Spain, they have these pretty serious aging requirements. But similar to regions in Italy, a lot of people are getting away from that. We're going to talk about blending tradition with innovation. One of the ways is to get away from some of these aging requirements because it just simply isn't a statement of quality. You can say, we're aging our wines at least five years and still produce a wine that isn't very good. That's fair enough. You could take a $$$$ line and put it in Barrel for two years, store it in Bottle for six years, and legally release it as Grand Reserva. Yeah. At $45 a bottle. That's like a new guard of producers who are bucking the restrictions and creating something outside the bounds. Is that what you're saying? There's some of that. Yeah. I was going to make a joke about with the different versions of age statements that Spain is taking it to Italy to be confusing. It really is. If you study those side by side and then you look at Barolo with Brunello de Montalcino, it's mind-blowing how different all the age statements can be, but it's a good rule of thumb. It's like two years, three years, five years, and the older the wine, the better the wine, right? But that's not always necessarily true. The older the wine, the more expensive the wine traditionally. Traditionally, yeah. But I think the important thing about age restrictions and age limits that Jon will probably speak to is the style that it suggests on a label. So, joven means young and youthful and bright and vibrant, and Crianza means another thing, and Reserva means it's gonna drink another way, and Gran Reserva means it's gonna drink yet another way. I was gonna say it would be a lot more simple if they just used numbers to signify age. But I think numbers don't speak to the style, generally, either, though, because that's just... You're right. It doesn't at all. And you know that, like, in whiskey, people can get infatuated with a number when maybe the number isn't what they want. Maybe you want the seven-year bourbon instead of the 21-year bourbon. Can we try this? So this is a Crianza. This is a Crianza. 2015 Celeste Crianza. By Torres Winery. Just like in Rueda, we see minimum varietal composition in Ribera as well, being 85% Tempranillo, them using the clone Tinto Fino. Is that Tinto Fino something that would be varietally labeled, or would it just say Tempranillo? Yeah, would it still say Tempranillo? Like this doesn't have to know. We see a little bit of both. More commonly Tempranillo, because that is the... It's what people know. Yeah, I mean, it's what people know. Wine idiots like me know Tempranillo, but I've never heard of Tinto Fino. You mean that Tempranilla? Tempranilla. We talked about this. That tastes like Sarsaparilla, right? This is a Tannic Beast, and it is young, and it is rough. I haven't gotten there yet. Tannic Beast. Or maybe it's that it has medium tannins and less fruit to not support the tannins, but it is grainy. Yeah, I agree with that. I'd say it's a little out of balance today. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Jon. The fruit's way down in the mix, and then it's like the herbal pop, like kind of a fennel, but it's like savory, dry tea leaf quality that it's kind of taken over. Cola, maybe, if you're going to be. Really common descriptor for tempranillo, black cherry and cola. And on the nose, I get both of those, but I agree that on the palate, it's coming off with a lot of skin tannin that's all over my teeth, and it's a little disjointed, and the finish just kind of falls a little flat for me today. This never happens. What is this crap you brought us? This never happens on our podcast, that we are like kind of disappointed by something. What do you have to say for yourself? I'm really sorry, guys. I went to public school. Yeah. So is this like indicative of the style? Like is that like more severe structure? Like what we would expect from something like this? This definitely comes off more structured and, you know, more prickly tannin. I don't know if maybe it's not a fruit day, is what a lot of people claim. Or can we try the next wine as we talk about it? We can try the next wine. Protos 2012 Reserva. You wanna try the Protos? Yeah, this one smells riper and fruitier and kind of cherry, and this is interesting. Well, coincidentally, it also received more age. It's also a lot of leathery tone on the nose, a little bit more oak presence, yeah. A lot more expressive, kind of pretty floral notes. I associate these notes with classy wine, like world-class, historical, and the money that has to go into the wood. Gosh, this is an interesting color. It's almost got a tinge of brown in it. We are looking at 2012 versus 2015. That time in Barrel will help for some oxidation. Yeah, if I have much juicier on the palate, forward kind of a feet. It's a pretty kick-ass wine. What does this cost? About 35 bucks. Big thing I get right on the nose is leathery licorice. Yeah, I can just smell that. Sour cherry. I hope this makes up for the other one. I like leathery licorice. I like it as a vocal warm up too. We can use that from now on. Say it four times fast. Leathery licorice. Leathery licorice. Leathery licorice. Man, is that bracing too. Yeah. Wow. So now we're seeing all the structure and kind of skin tanning presence that we've had in the last one, but we're also getting the acidity, the lift on the finish, the fruits there. I do love that that leathery component mid-palate, but for me this is signature temper neo, especially in this kind of stage of its life. I want to thank that if you just put it in a glass and hand it to me, I'd be like, yeah, that's definitely like middle-aged temper neo, cherry, cherry cola, a little bit of that kind of sassafras root beer quality for me and signature kind of leathery component. I love it. I think this is delicious. I would swing and miss. I would stupidly guess Barolo on this. Really? Yeah, because I'm an idiot. That's not brown enough for Barolo. I might think- It has like a much riper fruit core than Barolo does traditionally, like richer. But- It's a thing. I'd probably guess some Italian wine. Your Barolo fan would go for it though. I could definitely see an Italian drinker getting into this, you know, kind of that, especially on the aromatics. Like, this could be someone that's into Barolo or even Brunello. I'm thinking, yeah, Sangio, they say that floral note, especially, there's a lot of violet there, which I don't usually get from Tempranillo, but I think it's lovely. And still, I think a little bit of more time in the bottle would help this evolve, yes? Absolutely. Tempranillo is one of those great grape varieties that can age for decades in the bottle. I always caution wine drinkers that once you do open a bottle of mature Tempranillo, and I'm talking something 15, 20 plus years old, drink it that night. I've made the mistake of, you know, opening an older, you know, like a 94 Gran Reserva Ribera, and being so excited about it, I save a quarter of the bottle to bring to work to show the guys, and it's completely dead. And it's like, whoa, where'd you go? You were doing so much. Any other wine would have lived into the next day. But, you know, those older Tempranillos, drink them, don't share them. If there's any kind of life-changing wine you can hope to come into contact with, I would definitely say Vega Sicilia should be at the top. We are tasting Vega Sicilia 2009 Valbuena, Five Degrees, and Five Degrees refers to the five years that it ages. So really, that's Gran Reserva to start. From there, they go up into their Unico, which is a minimum of 10 years. Beyond that, Unico Reserva, which is a minimum of 14 years, and they do that just because that's what they do. This is also the winery responsible for the 85% requirement of Tempranillo. Not that they said they wanted 85%, but this is the property. They've been around since 1864, making Tempranillo in this region blended with the Bordeaux varieties. So we have them to thank for fun wines like this that they're making and that other producers are making that include Cabernet or Merlot or Petite Verdeau. Anyone get in this glass yet? Oh, it's so spicy. It's so baking spice. My first impression is this huge savory note that I didn't get out of the first two red wines we passed around. So it's a bit of a gear shift for me, which indicates age firstly, but also just a very different style. When I say savory, I mean, I'm getting some of that kind of soy, teriyaki, umami, a little mushroomy, but there's also this awesome layer of like almost a baked cherry. Really, really beautiful. Just I could just smell it for hours. And it's grippy on the palate, kind of like the others, but in a much more graceful way. Graceful is the perfect word for that. I love that. I think if you're talking Ribeiro de Duero, you can't talk about it and not mention Vega Sicilia. And thank you, Jon, this is a really special treat. It's not something we get to taste often. It's kind of like talking about Napa Valley wine and not mentioning Robert Mondavi somewhere in the history of it. This is the one that's this is kind of the unicorn wine that everybody should get to try at some point or another. Going through all these wines and talking about how their values, this is a buck fifty. Yeah. Valbuena, depending on the vintage, can we? I've seen them range anywhere from one twenty to about two hundred. And a lot of that goes into production and vintage quality. But, you know, they're also one of these guys that do it right and let the wine be what it's supposed to be. So if it's not ready, they're not going to release it yet. So I think, you know, on Unico and Unico, to that matter, if it's not a right vintage for it, they won't make it. So Unico production, they put out 98, 99, 2000. They didn't make an 01. So if you see any 01 Valbuena, that's a super special bottle. Oh, yeah. Declassed. And then from there, they released two, three, four, seven, eight, six. And then they'll be coming out with 09 this year. That's cool. And I mean, in terms of the price, yeah, this one is elevated. But if you think of this in terms of the pricing scale of other wines of the world and great wines of the world, you're talking this is on par with basically the quality of the first growth Bordeaux and this is its second wine. And most of those would still come higher price tags than this does. So in terms of someone who's collecting or buying wine for a special occasion, this is still considered quite a value. And for me, I love to try to think of Valbuena as a value because comparative to Unico, you know, we can be looking at 300 to 400 or more per bottle. Unico Reserva, you know, is upwards of 400 to 500. And the wine just speaks to me in its style, its taste, its texture, the aromatics, but also its ageability. This is 09. So this was released five years ago and it's still got a long life ahead of it. Valbuena easily can go 10, 20, 30 years after release. So after that initial five years of age, you can get up to 30 years. And Unico and Unico Reserva, even more so, you can frequently drink them on release, but you can go 40 to 60 years after release. Am I wrong for thinking this wine kind of smells like a fortified wine? It's got this kind of port character to it. I think that's a lot to do with the oxidative aging. Yeah, the fact that it sees five years of age. Wow, yeah, it's gorgeous. This is really cool, really cool wine. And it's soft and it's layered. I can keep smelling this for another two hours and I'm going to find something new every time I go back to the glass. And that's why it costs 150 bones. Oh, f***. The great thing about this one is it's like that every time. Every vintage I've had of Valbuena over delivers like this. Awesome. Yeah, what an awesome wine. Thank you for sharing this. That's fantastic. Thanks. For bringing the good juice. Closing thoughts on Ribeiro Del Duero and Rueda. If you are into Sauvignon Blanc, you're going to love Rueda. If you're into Chardonnay, you're probably going to love a different Rueda. If you love California Cabernet, you're going to love a Ribeiro Del Duero. If you love Bordeaux, you're probably going to love a different kind of Ribeiro Del Duero. And if you like Italian wine, you probably just drink Italian wine. And you talk too much with your hands. Yeah, right. Folks, that brings us to the Q&A portion of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, where we answer your question for a $20 Binny's gift card. Email your questions to comments at binnys.com, or hit us up on social media, on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, at Binny's Bev. Our question this week comes from Tina. She actually dropped it off at the Barrel to Bottle booth at the expo. What's up, Tina? The wine expo. Her question is, why are wine prices so varied? What makes a $20 bottle compared to a thousand? That's a really good question. I mean, we could do an entire podcast about this question, right? No doubt. I think a lot of it starts in the vineyard. Like literally the land. The land for sure. Vineyard acreage is expensive real estate. Then beyond that, you're also looking at how much attention are you giving to the vine. I remember my first work wine trip was to Washington. We went to this Cabernet farm and we're walking down this dirt road and if you look at the left side, the vines are very manicured. The canopy was super managed and you could tell that they had gone through, done a few passes. There was fruit on the ground that had been dropped and then you look to the right side and it was grown over wild. You couldn't see the fruit because there's so many leaves. That right there was a great image that I'll never forget because the people that are buying the fruit from the left side of this road are paying much more to have that vine cultivated and managed whereas the other guys are like, get what you can out of it and we'll see what happens. Sure enough, the wines that were on that left side of the road were going into a $40 bottle of wine, hopefully, and the stuff on the right side was going into a $5 bottle. Yeah, so the land, the labor costs, automation can save money. Sometimes it can cost money because something like an optical sorter is going to be really expensive. Then there's literally the glass, the marketing that goes into it. Yeah, and let's not overlook the cost of oak barrels. It is excruciating how much those things cost for... Pat, you can speak to that too. Just one barrel at a time, and most wineries have a rotation of 40 to 50 to hundreds of barrels at any given time. That's a very big cost, and a lot of those production kind of things are overlooked in wineries, but I agree that it's really going to start with real estate, and that also includes the facility, tasting room, tank, everything else that goes into it. And because they can. And then there's just the argument of what you pay for luxury items, and that's true of anything out there, whether it's a purse or a vehicle or a laptop computer. Some wines are luxury items, and some wines are for everyday consumption. And yeah, we could do a whole two-hour-long podcast on why things cost money. Tina, thanks for the question. $20 Binny's gift card coming to you. Once again, everybody else can write their questions to us, comments at binnys.com. Hit us up on social media, at Binny's Bev on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. And if we answer your question on the air, we will give you a $20 Binny's gift card. Jon, thanks for hanging out with us today and sharing these excellent wines. Oh, it was a blast. Love to do it again sometime. We'll be back in your feed in another week with another great episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Greg. I'm Barb. I'm Pat. I'm Jon. Keep tasting. My love is powerful.