2022 Vega Sicilia Alion Ribera Del Duero 3pk 3x750ml

Here's the shortcut serious Spanish-wine buyers eventually learn: if you want Vega Sicilia's DNA without paying Único money, you buy Alión.

Some background on why that name carries weight. Vega Sicilia was founded in 1864, planted with Bordeaux vines alongside the local Tinto Fino, and it's been Spain's benchmark red ever since — the estate Hugh Johnson likened to Château Latour. The Álvarez family bought it in 1982, and instead of coasting on the legend, they kept building.

Alión was their 1991 move: a separate winery, right next door, built to make a modern, unapologetically 100% Tinto Fino (Tempranillo) Ribera del Duero. Same family, same standards, different address. The fruit is a mosaic of the region's best sites, from Soria in the east to the Vega Sicilia estate itself.

Running it all is Gonzalo Iturriaga, the group's technical director since 2015 and the hand behind today's Vega Sicilia and Alión. In 2016 the owner asked him a simple question — how do we make Alión better? His answer was a new cellar with 42 different vessels: barrels, concrete, foudres, even a granite egg, so each village and vineyard gets raised on its own terms before the final blend.

2022 was a warm, dry, "solar" year, and the team leaned in carefully: softer extraction, larger oak formats, a slug of concrete to hold the freshness. The result runs rounder and more opulent than usual — dense black fruit, graphite, and a polished, slightly dusty tannin that gives grip without weight.

Just 270,870 bottles made. Decant it and it drinks now, but it's built to run to 2040.

This is Ribera del Duero at the level most people only read about.