Country: Spain  Region: Toro  Vintage: 2017 Category: Red Wine  Color: Red Producer: Bodegas Garmon With 30 years of experience as winemaker at Vega Sicilia, Mariano García and his two sons, Alberto and Eduardo García Montaña, form a winning team. They have also been gathering experience in Ribera del Duero. Mariano is a partner at Aalto and the family consulted Astrales for many years.With around 60,000 bottles, Garmón —a name which joins the family’s García and Montaña surnames— retails in Spain at around €38.The new premises are located in the village of Olivares de Duero (Valladolid), barely 20 kilometres away from Mauro. Grapes are sourced from old vine plots dotted across various villages further east, in the province of Burgos. Moradillo de Roa on the river Duero’s left bank boasts high-altitude vineyards (up to 1,000 metres) with clay soils topped by sand.On the right bank, in the vicinity of Aranda de Duero, the García Family is very fond both of the finesse and balance found at La Aguilera, where they work with long-established purveyors, and the small patches of vines found around the villages of Tubilla del Lago, Baños and Hontoria de Valdearados, an area unaffected by land consolidation. Here, most vineyards are grown on slopes up to almost 900 metres with predominance of chalky soils. The family also envisages acquiring some vineyards around Peñafiel-Valbuena-Olivares (Valladolid) in the near future. Tasting Notes: This inky, marvellously intense and fresh, exuberant blockbuster is made from old (80 to 100-year old vine) 100% Tinta de Toro (Tempranillo) grown primarily on pebbles, spends anywhere between 18 and 22 months maturing in newish French and American barriques depending on vintage and unravels quite spectacularly prior to bottling without filtration. Toro San Roman is an intense and attractive purple-colour with an alluring perfume of toasty oak, liquorice and mineral, spice, violet and balsamic black fruits. The palate is full, sweet, layered and harmonious with good acidity and ripe tannins adding structure to a long and round finish. A big wine that will continue to evolve in the cellar and drink well into 2025