I tasted a barrel sample of the 2019 La Mata from a 0.2-hectare plot in the village of Atauta. This year, the wine is aging in new French oak barrels, where it has been since the end of October 2019. As I saw in theViñas Viejas, the vintage is more marked here; in the La Diva and Carravilla, the wines showed more homogeneous, and there were less differences between vintages...

The 2019 La Diva, from a ripe and healthy vintage, contains some 8% white grapes that fermented with the rest of the destemmed Tempranillo in an open-top oak vat and has been in used French barriques since November 2019 (18 months). At 14.2% alcohol, this is riper than the 2018, but it doesn't show. The wine is harmonious, and in the context of the other two vintages, it maintains the elegance and poise, like this plot absorbs the effect of the vintages in a different way...

The 2018 La Diva comes from an ungrafted plot on sandy and limestone terraces, 0.35 hectares planted with Tempranillo and some 5% Albillo. The destemmed grapes fermented in an open-top oak vat with indigenous yeasts, and the wine matured in second and third use Burgundian barrels for 19 months. This is simply superb, elegant and powerful, an improved version of the already superb 2016. It has a very fine thread on the palate, beautifully textured and complete, with very fine chalky tannins and a long, dry and serious finish...