“He worked side by side with Bernard Noblet (at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti)… almost as if he were Noblet’s son, the next generation to take up the task, Jorge learned the importance of every small detail, how everything counts, even if it seems insignificant; that you can’t take shortcuts, the weight of time, the search for perfection and the beauty of wine.”
Luis Gutierrez, The New Vignerons, A New Generation of Spanish Wine Growers.
Jorge Monzon the proprietor of the diminutive Dominio del Àguila, has been collecting some of the oldest vines in the region on bony limestone soils and vinifying them in a crazy old winery with a very cramped, dark subterranean cellar… the presence of Monzon, a true vigneron in the original, Burgundian sense, of the word is refreshing in a region many have called Spain’s Napa Valley, thanks to the millions of dollars of investment in creating sleek New World reds and striking architectural wineries. But in the face of overwhelming novelty and innovation, its often the lingering past that’s the most compelling feature.”
Rajat Parr and Jordan Mackay, The Sommelier’s Atlas of Taste.
Some fantastic notes and insights below from the Australian importer Lachlan Barber
When writing about fine wine the first emphasis is usually, correctly, place; terroir. It’s why importers like me dot their emails with evocative photos of wretched old vines digging into rock. Terroir is, undoubtedly, an important aspect of this story too but it’s hard to write about Dominio del Àguila without mostly writing about the domain’s owner and winemaker Jorge Monzon. Jorge himself would probably be appalled at this, he’s a deeply committed terroir-ist who organized his winery around a classification of vineyards based purely on the quality of site. He’s also not the typical leading man style of wine maker who enjoys seeing his name in print: Jorge is softly spoken, kind-eyed, thoughtful and reserved. He’s still humbled, six or seven years after I first imported his wines, that people as far away as Australia care enough about what he’s doing in a tiny hamlet in Spain to spend serious money on his wine. But people matter, just as not all vineyards are created equal, so too are all vignerons different and there are very few in Spain or in the world who have the sort of mastery that Jorge possesses.
Jorge is a native to Ribera del Duero, like many young producers he’s motivated by nostalgic memories of harvest, helping grandparents and parents to pick, crush and tend ferments. Jorge’s family owned vines but that was the extent of their involvement in the wine industry, they’d tend a couple of family vineyards on the weekends, sell grapes to the co-op or the local bodegas, and make a little garage wine for the family consumption. As a teenager, the clear eyed Jorge decided to pursue wine as a profession there was no family bodega or close connection to open doors. A perfectionist even at that age, Jorge had researched the great domaines of the world and inspired by Burgundian ideals, he drove himself north from Ribera del Duero straight to Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, knocked on the door and asked for a job. They hired him on the spot. It’s an incredible story, but there’s something charmed about Jorge and having spent time with him on multiple visits to the Ribera over the years makes that story seem perfectly reasonable.
Jorge spent six years living in Burgundy, working exclusively under Bernard Noblet at DRC the entire time. By the time he returned to Ribera del Duero he’d absorbed the intense, uncompromising pursuit of quality that lies behind DRC. He landed first at Vega Sicilia, where he was charged with creating a great, white Vega Sicilia to sit alongside their Unico. That project never fully eventuated, with the company deciding Albariño was a better bet than Ribera’s nearly unknown Albillo Mayor and instead buying out an existing winery in Rias Baixas. From there Jorge worked with other top Ribera producers; the modernist Aalto and the uber traditional Arzuaga. All the while, he collected old vineyards, purchasing small parcels and tending them on weekends, mostly selling grapes, often back to his employers, but still making a little on the side for his family in the old underground caves of his village.
Through harvests with Aalto, Arzuaga and Vega Sicilia Jorge had become fascinated by a single village called Àguilera near Aranda del Duero, not far from where he’d grown up. Meaning ‘Eagles Nest’ Àguilera sat above the valley floor on a wedge of limestone that protruded up above the surrounding plains. To the north a crack in the hills funnelled cold air from the Sierra de la Demanda directly into the back of the hillside. Best of all Àguilera was one of the few villages that had escaped a wave of trellising and re-planting that swept the region in the 80s and 90s. Meaning that within the confines of the village there was a full palette of very old vineyards which varied in temperatures, aspects and depth to the underlying bedrock, which itself had been fractured and weathered into an array of different textures.
As Jorge took on more and more old vineyards in Àguilera he started winding back on work with other wineries, dedicating more and more time to his own vines and building the first stages of his own domain. The process was slow, in keeping with his time at DRC every detail had to be correct, every vineyard managed biodynamically from day one, every element thought through and executed fully, the first release included wines that had sat for four years in his underground caves before bottling. By the time he’d officially launch Dominio del Águila he was working around 35 hectares of vines, with an average vine age of 100 years, all with full organic certification. In the early days, only 10 hectares of these vines provided fruit for Dominio del Águila, with the rest were being snapped up by a veritable ‘who’s who’ of Ribera royalty; Vega Sicilia, Aalto, and Azruaga of course but also the likes of Peter Sisseck, Telmo Rodriguez and Felix Callejo. Since then, however as the winery has evolved, he’s been able to keep more and more of his own fruit and aims to stop selling entirely in the next year or two.
Unsurprisingly the wines were immediately lauded. Old vine complexity, beautifully rendered and exactingly precise. He’d also synthesised the traditional frames of Ribera del Duero; Reserva, Gran Reserva to his Burgundian upbringing. Picaro tinto would come from old vineyards on the southern side of Àguilera, where afternoon sun and deeper layers of clay above the limestone forced earlier picking. Another subset of vineyards were earmarked for ‘Clarete' the old style red-white blended into rosé that his grandparents had made and drunk. And which the old men of the village still quaff in large quantities (it will be released later this year). A cluster of small parcels directly in the path of the northern wind on exposed limestone which produced deeply tannic, slow ripening fruit would the Reserva. A single old site on exceptionally friable limestone with perfect exposition above the Reserva sites would become ‘Penas Aladas,’ a Gran Reserva complete with the historical gold wire wrapping, but one in which it’s Gran Reserva status exists as a response to the characters of the vineyard itself, where extended élevage is required to tame the innate power of that particular site. In a throw-back to the forgotten project at Vega Sicilia he also produced a single white wine, an intense, age-worthy thing made of pure Albillo Mayor. The final piece was Canta la Perdiz, in his mind the ‘Grand Cru’ of the village, a vineyard that Jorge believes contains the sort of natural balance and intensity he’d seen in greatest Gran Cru’s of Burgundy.
A quick note on vintages
2022 was marked by a warm growing season that ended rapidly as unseasonal storms hit during harvest. Despite difficult conditions the wines are powerful but retain freshness.
2021 was a classic ‘Ribera’ year, heavy snow and freezing temperatures in winter then gradually building to a warm summer. Powerful, concentrated wines with freshness.
2020, along with 2016 are Jorge’s favourite vintages, long, cool and fresh, wines of elegance and balance.
2019 was warm without being problematic, not as stylish as 2020, not as difficult as 2022. 2018 was similar to 20, cool, long and slow but alittle more warmth and slightly firmer wines.
The Wines
Dominio del Aguila ‘Vinas Viejas’ Albillo Mayor (Blanco) 2020
Àguila Blanco has rapidly become one of the most sought after rare wines of Spain, the first white Ribera and a contender for the greatest Spanish white. It’s cobbled together from a cluster of plots on limestone bedrock, all Albillo Mayor vines of at least 100 years old. It’s whole bunch pressed and fermented reductively in used oak casks, often taking a full year to finish malolactic fermentations in Jorge’s cold underground caves. It mimicks the practices of white vinification Jorge took from DRC but updated to reflect the quirks of Albillo Mayor resulting is something that structurally harks to match-struck, powerful, intensity of top Burgundy; so much so that it is often half-jokingly referred to ‘Spanish Coche-Dury (for example in Noble Rot’s Wine from Another Galaxy.) At the same time weaving its flavour profile from classically Continental Spanish palate. It is quite simply a phenomenal, unique wine but quantities are extremely limited so please get in contact with me as soon as possible if you are interested in securing a few bottles.
2019 was a warm and dry low-yielding year, somewhat similar to 2015, and the 2019 Reserva could be the modern version of the 2015—a round, lush and approachable Reserva that is perfumed and fruit-driven, with spices in the background. It's a hedonist cuvée of 95% Tempranillo and 5% other grapes from some of the oldest grapes in the village. It fermented in concrete with indigenous yeasts followed by a slow malolactic in 228-liter French oak barrels, mostly used, where the wine matured for 35 months. It reveals very good integration of the oak that is neatly folded into the wine. It shows the tannic structure of the 2019 vintage. 23,875 bottles and 430 magnums produced. It was bottled in September 2022. 96 points, drink 2024-2031, Luis Gutierrez, The Wine Advocate.
They didn’t produce the 2017 vintage of the single-vineyard wine from some of their oldest vines, so after the 2016 they jumped to the 2018 Peńas Aladas Gran Reserva. It has a very intense noes of licorice, flowers (decayed violets), wet chalk, spices (nutmeg), some nuts (pecan) and a volatile twist with great freshness. It matured in French oak barrels for 53 months. it has a fine thread, a chalky and dry feeling, fine tannins and a dry and very tasty finish that’s almost salty. It has all the components and the balance with them to develop nicely in bottle. It shoud age effortlessly for 30 years. It’s very impressive, but it doesn’t reach the elegance of the 2016. 1,729 bottles produced.
99 points, Luis Gutierrez, The Wine Advocate, July 2024.
I tasted two vintages of the single-vineyard Canta la Perdiz, from the vineyard that they consider to produce their most elegant red. The youngest of the two, the 2019 Canta la Perdiz was cropped from a warm and dry year, fermented with indigenous yeasts in concrete with full clusters and a slow malolactic in barrel (seven months) and then spent 35 months in French oak barrels. It has an very expressive nose that is open and immediate, with polished tannins and surprisingly integrated oak after such a long elevage. It’s a vintage of pleasure and juiciness but with serious structure and depth and it is very harmonious and balanced with fine-grained chalky tannins. 1,847 bottles produced. Importer’s notes.