Comando G - Some of the Best Grenache on the Planet
The 2020's are a stunning collection of wines, in my opinion every inch as good as the much-heralded 2016s and 2018s albeit with a touch more fruit weight than the 2018s. Like those vintages the 2020s are effortlessly stylish, the result of long, cool growing conditions and ample water albeit, yet there was a little more warmth at the end of summer that sees the wines pick up a slightly more silken texture. If the 2019s saw Comando G fighting for finesse against the warming climate 2020 sees them soaring; long, pure and very granitic. It should be a vintage in which most Gredos producers flourish, exacerbating the natural style of the region without the extreme linearity of a truly cool vintage which is what will emerge next year with 2021s, a year that promises to really divide the good the from the great. - Lachlan Barber, importer.
It seems like the Comando G way of doing things—ripe grapes that develop full aromas and flavors, vinified with a very soft hand, often with full clusters and long infusions and élevage in neutral vessels, well-seasoned oak vats, large barrels, concrete, tinaja and even glass containers—seems to have demonstrated that it’s the best way to show what the region is. The influence of the place, the terroir, the granite (and a bit of slate) and the different components, quartz, silt and others, the high altitude and the mountain climate are translated into pale and delicate wines, fine-boned, weightless but with energy and grip, aromatic, pleasant and easy to drink. - Luis Gutierrez, Wine Advocate.
Comando G Camino del Pilar Albillo Real 2018 500ml
There is a still unnamed white matured in glass demijohn with flor for one year and one year in a 600-liter Manzanilla Sherry cask that they've been wanting to produce to obtain a sharp and austere Albillo, something not easy with the variety, for which the flor acts like a liposuction for the white, making the wine sharper and also amplifying the granite sensation on the palate. This was produced with Albillo from Cadalso de los Vidrios and is still unnamed, but let's call it 2018 Bota for now. The price was still undecided, and the wine I tasted was still in the butt. The idea is that it spends one year in the butt and then another year in demijohn; but for this first vintage, it was the other way round, spending one year in demijohn first and then one year in butt, because they didn't get the Sherry barrels in time. The veil of yeasts is thin, and the character is more Jura than Sherry, with nutty and spicy aromas and a very mineral palate. This will always be a single vintage and non-fortified. They expect to fill some 1,400 half-liter bottles before the end of 2020. 94-95 points - Luis Gutierrez (tasted out tank in mid 2020). The Wine Advocate, November 2020.
Comando G La Brena 1er Cru Garnacha 2020
The vino de paraje (lieu-dit) 2020 La Breña 1er, which they consider a premier cru within their internal classification of wines, is from a slightly younger vineyard (60 years old) and some nearby small plots that they started working in 2018. It has seen a progression toward finesse and complexity but without reaching the level of Rumbo al Norte, which is only a few hundred meters away. In 2020, they aged this subtler version exclusively in concrete, equalizing the ripeness down. It has 13.5% alcohol and very fine minerality, like very fine-grained chalky granite. 3,826 bottles and 100 magnums produced. It was bottled in March 2022. 96 points - Luis Gutierrez - The Wine Advocate, May 2023.
Comando G El Reventon Garnacha 2020
The 2020 El Reventón is now a wine from Comando G and no longer a Dani Landi wine, whose personal project came to an end with the 2019 vintage. It's still exactly the same wine from the same vineyard in Cebreros on slate soils. It has a lot of cherry fruit, a liquorous part à la Rayas, with 15% alcohol. It's round and juicy but with no sense of heat, mixing notes of rose hip with the lavender, curry and chamomile but in a subtler way, less Mediterranean. It's fine-boned but super tasty with an almost salty/umami twist. 1,708 bottles and 50 magnums produced. It was bottled in March 2022. 96 points - Luis Gutierrez - The Wine Advocate, May 2023.
Comando G Las Umbrias Garnacha 2020
Las Umbrías is a single vineyard of 0.35 ha located in Rozas de Puerto Real at 1000 metres altitude. The vineyard is wedged between two ranges and gets very little light, It is the last picked and most delicate of the single vineyards Garnachas.
Slightly darker, deeper and less ethereal on the nose than usual, the 2020 Las Umbrías has a lot of grip on the palate and is an earthier vintage of Umbrías, not the ethereal wine like the 2018, despite being the year with less alcohol (13.5%). It was a high-yielding year, and they picked the grapes during heavy rain, so they had to dry the grapes with warm air before putting them in the vat. Umbrías is possibly their most fragile grand cru, and it suffers under certain conditions. It seems to have suffered a bit in 2020, but it still has the elegance of Umbrías, the iron-like sensations from Rozas de Puerto Real and the balance and subtleness in a more earthy way. 2,559 bottles and 40 magnums were filled in March 2022. 95 points - Luis Gutierrez - The Wine Advocate, May 2023.
