Vega Sicilia Unico

The elevage is complex, building from smaller barrels to larger barrels over a period of six years, finishing in larger vats. Then four years in bottle. This has good ripeness and deep fruit-presence on the bouquet with rich red and dark plums, subtly earthy spice, cedar and fresh tobacco. There’s terrific concentration on the palate and very ripe dark-plum, blueberry and cherry flavours. The tannins are fresh, very long and carry flavours deep on the finish. Natural freshness and effortless power, too — a hallmark of Unico!

Vega Sicilia was founded almost 155 years ago, in 1864 by a Basque citizen, Eloy Lecanda from the North part of Spain. He founded Vega in Valladolid, where it is located now, and at that moment it was a place where no one had cultivated any kind of grapes. He owned the winery for approximately forty years, until the beginning of the last century, when the winery was sold to the Herrero family who were basically bankers from close to Valladolid. They owned the winery until around the 1950s, when the winery was sold to an industrial group who commercialised to make the wine. In 1962, the winery was sold to a guy from Venezuela. This is the earliest date in the history of Vega Sicilia where the company did not belong to a Spanish family or person. He was the owner for 20 years until 1982, when the latest stage of Vega where we currently are at right now. The Alvarez family, the current owners bought Vega Sicilia. They had bought one winery, which made three wines, Unico, Valbuena and Reserva Especial, and they decided to create a group of wineries, and in 1991, they founded Alión, in the Ribera del Duero, only 8 miles east from Vega Sicilia. And that is very briefly the history of Vega...