2016 Koyle Los Lingues Vineyard Cerro Basalto

For a five-year-old wine, this has a lot of life. Bright redcurrants and plums with delicate notes of terracotta and spice. This has a very healthy tannin structure that keeps the wine moving and gives it a long, clean finish. A blend of 37 per cent mourvèdre, 35 per cent grenache, 23 per cent carignan and five per cent syrah. From biodynamically grown grapes. Demeter certified. Drink or hold.

Cerro Basalto is Koyle’s Mediterranean take on their Los Lingues Vineyards. As you can guess, it’s on a hill of basalt stone and covers 6 hectares, planted primarily to Mediterranean varieties like mourvèdre, syrah, garnacha, and cariñena, as well as cabernet franc and carménère that’s used for the cuvée G2. This new 2016 is 39% monastrell, 33% garnacha, 23% carignan, and the rest is syrah. The 2016 season was very cool in general in the Central Valley, and if you add to that the cooling influence of the Andes in Los Lingues, you get this—a wine with radiant, very fresh red fruit as well as tense acidity that speaks volumes about that cold. The four varieties spent more or less 12 months aging, each of them separately. The garnacha, the fruity heart of this wine, never touches oak, but is aged in cement eggs, while the cariñena is aged in large, 1,800-liter foudres and the monastrell and syrah in 400-liter barrels. Leave this wine alone for 2 or 3 years, at least.

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For reports and full tasting notes, go to Tim Atkin MW's website.