92/100 Punkte Robert Parker Feb 2018
The red 2015 Horizonte de Exopto is a traditional blend of Tempranillo with 10% each Garnacha and Graciano, all from the village of Ábalos, including the Garnacha that previously was sourced from Rioja Baja. The aim is to show the character of the Sonsierra with freshness, balance, elegance and length provided by the limestone soils. It fermented in concrete vats with indigenous yeasts, with destemmed and lightly crushed grapes, and a post-fermentation maceration of one week. It matured 50/50 in 600-liter demi-muids and 225-liter barriques, 20% of them new, for 12 months. It's very perfumed, expressive, open, long and complete, with good ripeness but without any excess. There is good definition, with fine tannins on the palate and better-integrated oak than some years ago. This is sourced from the same vineyards as the white, which is why the wines share the same name. 10,000 bottles were filled in November 2016.

93/100 Punkte James Suckling July 2017
Sweet black fruit and fine vanilla from the oak. Surprisingly plush for this category in spite of the serious tannins. Long and quite polished finish. Drinking well now.

92/100 Punkte Robert Parker June 2019
The red 2017 Horizonte de Exopto is a traditional blend of Tempranillo with 10% each Garnacha and Graciano, but now not all of grapes come from the village of Ábalos#since 2016, they have added two plots in San Vicente de la Sonsierra. The destemmed and lightly crushed grapes fermented in concrete vats with indigenous yeasts, and the wine matured 50/50 in 600-liter demi-muids and 225-liter barriques for one year. The wine is surprisingly fresh, expressive and aromatic and has a touch of black pepper, perhaps because there are more grapes from higher-altitude vineyards that didn't suffer the frost, and the result might be fresher than some wines from 2016 or 2015. The move to bigger barrels and less oak seems to have paid back with much better integration of the wood and additional nuance. A great effort for the vintage and a bit of a surprise#lighter and less concentrated but more drinkable. 9,000 bottles were filled in November 2018.

94/100 Punkte James Suckling, July 2019
This is a beautiful play between fresh blackberries, violets and lavender and dried meat, vanilla and spices. Iodine, licorice and tar all in there, too. Full body, muscular yet grainy tannins and layer after layer of plush fruit, wrapped up neatly in tangy acidity. Drink in 2022.

93/100 Punkte Robert Parker June 2019
The white has the same name as the entry-level red, and I tasted the 2017 Horizonte de Exopto Blanco. For the white, they have added the grapes from one more plot in the village of Ábalos that's planted exclusively with white grapes (the rest are planted with a majority of red and only individual white vines), and production has grown to 6,000 bottles. Produced in a slightly oxidative way, it's mostly Viura and 10% each Garnacha Blanca and Malvasía Riojana, fermented together in stainless steel with indigenous yeasts and finished in barriques. The élevage was in used 225-liter barrels (60% of the volume), concrete eggs (25% and used for the first time) and French oak demi-muids (the remaining 15%) and lasted 12 months. The new thing is the addition of the concrete egg, which seems to have added freshness, tension and aromatic complexity. In fact, the wine makes me think of a cool vintage (and it was not), and the wine is fresh and has great ac

92/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2018

93/100 Punkte Robert Parker Feb 2018
The eponymous red 2015 Exopto is an atypical blend of 70% Graciano from the south, a grape that can keep very good acidity and ripens nicely in warmer vintages (like 2015) and 30% Tempranillo from old vines. In previous vintages, the wine had less Graciano and some 10% Garnacha, but they didn't like what the Garnacha did to the blend in 2015, so they left it out for the first time ever. It fermented in 1,500-liter oak vats with indigenous yeasts, daily pigéage and malolactic in barrel in the spring. The wine matured in 225- and 500-liter oak casks, and they have reduced the new oak to some 30%. Even though they have reduced the new oak and gone for larger volumes, it's still a little marked by the oak and might need some more time in bottle to finish integrating, because there is very nice stuffing here. It has very healthy acidity that should help it develop nicely in bottle. This is elegant and open, less stressed by tannins, within the power

93/100 Punkte Robert Parker June 2019
One of two new single-vineyard reds, the 2017 El Espinal comes from a plot in San Vicente de la Sonsierra at 650 meters in altitude, on sandy soils with clay and limestone surrounded by pine trees. The particularity here is that Maturana Tinta (a.k.a. Castests, a relative of Carmenere) was regrafted on Garnacha some 25 years ago, and this is a varietal Maturana, which is quite rare. It fermented in 225-liter barrels and matured in 600-liter barrels for 15 months. There is more concentration and more of everything, including the peppery and herbal aromas, and a pungent note of freshly cracked back peppercorn on the palate. It's a more powerful and long-lived year, and it's impossible to guess as Rioja because the profile is completely Atlantic and would fool almost everybody in a blind tasting. So, it's not for you if you hate the herbal character of the Bordeaux wines. 1,200 bottles were filled in March 2019.