Vega Sicilia

Founded in 1864 at Valbuena de Duero, on the high plateau of what is now Ribera del Duero, Vega Sicilia spent a century becoming Spain's most patient estate before the region around it even had a name. Since 1982 it has been guarded by the Álvarez family, who understood that what they had bought was not a winery but a tempo.

The material is old-vine Tinto Fino — Tempranillo as this plateau speaks it — joined in Único by Cabernet Sauvignon, a marriage the house has kept since the nineteenth century. The first vintage of Único was made in 1915, under the Herrero brothers; within two decades it was Spain's most revered wine, and for much of the century the only Spanish red collected and coveted around the world. But the true signature is not a grape. It is the refusal to be hurried: wine moved between vat, barrel and old wood on a schedule set by tasting rather than accounting, bottles resting at the estate for years after that.

For a collector, Vega Sicilia is the rare case where the producer has already done the cellar's work. A bottle of Único arrives with a decade of patience served — the question is only whether its keeping since release has honoured what came before. That is the part this cellar answers for.

Founded

1864, by Eloy Lecanda y Chaves, at Valbuena de Duero. He planted Bordeaux cuttings — Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec — alongside native Tinto Fino, unusual for the region at the time.

Estate

Around 1,000 hectares, of which some 210 are under vine, divided across dozens of plots and nineteen soil types shaped by the Duero river.

Único

Roughly 80–94% Tinto Fino with Cabernet Sauvignon, from the oldest vines (often 60 years and older). Aged around ten years in barrel and bottle before release — among the longest élevages in the wine world — using 225-litre French and American oak and large old wooden vats.

Valbuena 5.°

The five-year wine: mostly Tinto Fino with a little Merlot, released after five years. Often described by the family as "the expression of time".

Único Reserva Especial

A multi-vintage blend rather than a single year — the house's most exceptional lots from several vintages, assembled and released together. It sits at the very top of the range, above the vintage Único.

First vintage

Único was first made in 1915 under the Herrero family, with winemaker Domingo "Txomin" Garramiola. It became Spain's first internationally collected wine and set the estate's reputation for extraordinary ageing.

Since 1982

Owned by the Álvarez family, with Pablo Álvarez as managing director from 1985 — the figure most associated with the modern estate. They restored its quality and reputation and expanded into Ribera (Alión), Toro (Pintia), Tokaj (Oremus) and, with Benjamin de Rothschild, Rioja (Macán), now grouped as Tempos Vega Sicilia.

Drawn from the estate's own records and the accounts of Berry Bros. & Rudd, Vinfolio and Rare Wine Co. The estate: vega-sicilia.com. Record updated July 2026.