El Marciano Garnacha Alfredo Maestro 2023

I really love this wine, I mean REALLY love it. They produce about 5000 bottles a year and I feel like I managed to glug my way through about 20% of that and still want more. The 2017 had a wonderful sizzle on the tongue, giving a mildly acidic complexity, finer than champagne bubbles, in fact barely there, but more like a toned down version of touching your tongue to a 9 volt battery when you were a kid. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a negative observation nor merely a set up for a shocking joke around polarity, but an interesting characteristic of a natural wine which has done its own thing until bottling time. The 2018, isn’t like this. I’ve confirmed by drinking three bottles and my immediate thought was that they weren’t so great. It’s because of difference and expectations; I say “not so great” but it’s still amazing, just not what it was. As a natural wine, something my partner and I adore for their character and complexity, there isn’t the control to maintain something standardised, which is what makes it interesting. I’d never have considered myself to be the sort of person who would discuss particular vintages of a wine, but now I can get the finer points, something not noticeable with the larger, almost factory control by other producers. It’s quite a high alcohol content, but considering that and the depth of colour, I find the taste velvety and smooth, with acidic hints, wonderfully lacking in the overwhelming, musty, barrel like way of many wines of comparable strength, where the barrel often seems to be the main source of flavour. This makes it wonderfully easy to drink, and chatting with a friend of a friend on social media, it seems we aren’t the only people to think so; the “Alien Sex Wine” also went down a storm throughout Glasgow last year, as our acquaintance noted it as his establishment’s best seller. This is an outrageously good wine and I really hope the 5000 barrels from 2018 will be enough.