Mariano García made the wines at Spanish icon Vega Sicilia for 30 years before founding Aalto in 1999 with partner Javier Zaccagnini, and the young winery has established a record of consistent quality. This bottling is 100 percent Tinto Fino (the local name for Tempranillo), primarily from old-vine vineyards.
After a brutally dry summer in 2012, García decided to drop 30 percent of the grape bunches to encourage uniform ripening of the remaining fruit on the drought-stressed vines. The wine ages an average of 20 months in 85 percent French oak, the rest American.
