93+
John Gilman
(3/2017) "Isaac Cantalapiedra and his son, winemaker Manuel, cultivate twenty hectares of vines in and just outside of the borders of Rueda- hence the Castilla y León DO on this bottle, despite the fact that seven hectares of their Verdejo vineyards are in the heart of Rueda. This wine is crafted with natural yeast fermentation, with ninety percent fermented in stainless steel and ten percent in older French casks, with the wine spending eight months nurturing on its fine lees prior to bottling. The 2015 Cantayano delivers a deep, complex bouquet loaded with personality, reveling in scents of pear, peach stone, wild fennel, incipient notes of beeswax, salty soil tones and a nice herbal touch of lemongrass in the upper register. On the palate the wine is pure, focused and very full-bodied for Verdejo, with a rock solid core, excellent soil signature, bright acids and outstanding length and grip on the vibrant and still quite youthful finish. This is a dynamite bottle of Verdejo that should continue to improve over the next five to seven years in the bottle and may well last longer than that! 2017-2025+."
