Got this from a shop I found on instagram that was selling this for like 90% off. Can’t believe my good fortune!
The first thing I have to say is that this is not a wine I’ve had many times in my life. In fact, this is the very first time I’ve had Unico. I tried this over four days and enjoyed it best on day two and three.
Old world mancave aromatics. Extreme concentration with a wide range of confectionary accents that never come across as saccharine. The nose shows campsmoke, leather, vanilla, soy, plum sauce, fig cake, milk chocolate and cinnamon sugar. It’s an oak-prominent profile but when I thought about it from the perspective of a spirit or a mature PX, it became coherent. The fruit is beautiful and just present enough to sing in chorus, but would I say the fruit does anything interesting on its own? Not really.
On the palate this wine is absolutely jaw-dropping. At 16 years of age, it tastes more like it’s 5. Still very full-bodied and velvety with moderately resolved tannins with some dry drag and pinch on the tip of the tongue. There’s very good acidity which hits the juicy register and turns some of the darker notes bright. Chocolate strawberries, chocolate orange, toffee, bourbon, white pepper and pastilles on the finish which is pretty fucking lengthy – more on that later.
Texturally it is very fleshy but not in a high alcohol way but more like an absurdly concentrated, high density of layers kind of way. It feels like you’re living north of the wall and it’s the coldest winter of your life and your fellow villagers have piled fifteen blankets made of tempranillo on top of you. You must survive for the prophecy to come true.
It’s intense. It’s rich. It’s ripe. But it’s not modern-feeling and you can already see where it will keep integrating over probably the next two decades. It’s sixteen years old and still dominated by oak. Yet you really can see the direct, linear, forward of this wine’s evolution. It’s not marching towards maturity, it’s more of an oblivious trudge that I probably won’t have the patience for. But it feels as secure as a Vanguard fund.
I’ve actually come back to this note ten minutes later just to mention that the wine still stains the mouth with flavor and perfume.
I would absolutely drink this on someone else’s dime and were I a younger man, I’d buy some in Europe and save it for my retirement party.
Imported in the USA by Europvin.
Approximate Retail in US at time of posting: $430-$599
Approximate Retail in UK: 250-400 GBP
Approximate Retail in EU: 350-485 Euro
Approximate Retail in AUS: 1078 AUD (but only one listing, so.)
by Potion_Collector
7 Comments
Ah yes… the famed Failla 2009 Vega Sicilia Unico.
Youre not even going to acknowledge whats going on there?!
Failla makes some great wines, too!
BRB going to sharpie 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars on all my bottles.
You need to go to a hospital
Are these the Kurniawan Wines everybody is talking about?
I’m dumb. What is the joke here?
Hell yeah. Not sure why folks are fixated on the bottle situation when you explained the circumstances. Nice note, super evocative as usual.