Vega Sicilia Unico 2011

A Bordeaux idea on the Castilian plateau

Vega Sicilia sits on the Duero River near the village of Valbuena de Duero, in the province of Valladolid, where the slopes coming down from the high, dry plateau meet the river's alluvial plain. The estate was founded by Don Eloy Lecanda y Chaves, who had inherited the property in 1859 and had trained in the Bordeaux region of France. Most accounts date the founding to 1864, when he planted cuttings he had brought back from France; one 2023 report says instead that the estate was 'originally founded in 1860.'

Lecanda planted Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec alongside the native red grape, then called Tinto del Pais or Aragones and known today as Tinto Fino, the local strain of Tempranillo. Bordeaux varieties were unusual in the region at the time. One account says that by his death in 1894 he had 500,000 vines in the ground, and that, surprisingly, it was the Tempranillo that made the better wine.

The name is older than the winery, and its origin is unknown. 'Vega' refers to the green growth along the banks of the Duero; 'Sicilia' is generally read as Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians, not the Italian island. Lecanda left no written record of why he chose it. The winery today stands behind St. Cecilia's small 19th-century chapel.

Garramiola, the Herreros and the Alvarez family

The style that made the estate famous came after Lecanda. The Herrero family, owners from 1890, hired the Basque winemaker Domingo 'Txomin' Garramiola. He had been working for Cosme Palacio, a Rioja merchant who leased the cellars at Vega Sicilia in the early 20th century after phylloxera devastated Rioja's vineyards. Garramiola stayed and applied the Bordeaux cellar methods he had learned in Rioja, including small-barrel aging and long maturation, to Lecanda's vineyard. The first vintage of Unico was 1915. One account credits the 1917 and 1918 Unicos with prizes at the 1929 world's fair in Barcelona.

For decades the wine was hardly sold at all. The Herreros' social connections put it on the best tables in Castile, but at first it could only be received as a gift. For most of its history it was little known even in Spain and belonged to no appellation. Garramiola's methods passed down within the cellar to Martiniano Renedo and, above all, to Jesus Anadon, who ran the estate for a long time. Mariano Garcia, the son of one of the farm workers, became winemaker in 1968; sources give his departure as 1996 or 1998. Xavier Ausas took over technical direction in 1998, and Gonzalo Iturriaga has been winemaker since 2015.

In April 1982, the same year Ribera del Duero became an official Denominacion de Origen, the estate was bought by David Alvarez and his children; one writer counts them as its fifth owners. The family had made its fortune in cleaning and security services, not wine. Pablo Alvarez, a lawyer from Bilbao, was involved from 1983 by one account and joined as general manager in 1985 by another. Soon after the purchase he said, 'Morally, we cannot live off the demand which comes from historic prestige without offering more.' Of the 1980s he later said that Vega Sicilia 'was the one-eyed man in the land of the blind, undervalued and not understood throughout the world.'

2011: a warm year, picked slowly

The winery describes 2011 as a normal winter followed by a frost-free spring that ran warmer than usual and moved the vines' cycle forward. July opened hot before temperatures returned to average in the second half of the month, and veraison came around August 12, the norm for the area. Ripening finished slowly, with no rain and good temperatures, so the team could wait for each plot to reach its best point. The harvest ran from September 15 to September 28, and the winery called the result an excellent vintage, with healthy grapes, deep color and good acidity.

Not every observer described the year the same way. One critic called it 'a challenging vintage of Unico' that grew out of a hot season and gave a powerful, muscular wine that needed days of air to open. Another wrote that, for Vega Sicilia, 2011 was a fresher year than 2010, against the common idea of those two vintages in Ribera del Duero. A third, tasting it from magnum at a vertical in 2022, called it the product of 'a warm, generous year.'

According to one critic's report, the grapes were chilled in a cold room for 24 hours before sorting, then macerated at 9 to 10 degrees Celsius for three to four days before fermentation was started with a pied de cuve. The winery says Unico ferments with native yeasts in wooden tanks. Accounts of the malolactic fermentation conflict: the winery says it takes place in wood, while the same critic reported stainless steel for this vintage.

Unico then goes through what the winery calls probably the longest aging of any red wine: normally about six years in wood and four in bottle, moving between new and used French and American oak barrels of 225 liters and large oak vats (the winery's own page gives both 20,000 and 22,000 liters). The 2011 was bottled in June 2017 and released in 2021.

What is in the bottle

The estate covers almost 1,000 hectares, of which 210 are planted to vines, and only about 40 hectares are used for Unico. The vineyards sit at 700 to 900 meters and are planted at 2,222 vines per hectare; for the 2011 the vines averaged 35 years old. The topsoil is fine colluvial material washed down from the hillside with small fragments of limestone, over sand with abundant quartz gravel, with angular limestone boulders on the surface. The winery counts 19 soil types; the number of plots is given as 55 on the winery's 2011 sheet, 62 by Pablo Alvarez in 2022, and 64 by one reference.

The 2011 is 95% Tinto Fino and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon at 14% alcohol. Yields were 3,000 to 3,500 kg per hectare, or 21 to 24.5 hectoliters per hectare. The winery made 88,288 standard 750ml bottles, 3,505 magnums, 318 double magnums, 60 imperials and 3 salmanazars.

Unico is made only in good years. One writer lists 2001, 1997, 1993, 1992, 1988, 1984, 1978 and 1977 as years without it, when the best fruit went into the estate's other red, Valbuena. Unico should not be confused with Unico Reserva Especial, a non-vintage blend of several Unico vintages that is also aged at least ten years and can combine harvests more than 30 years apart.

Spain's first growth

The wine writer Hugh Johnson, comparing Spain's great houses to the Bordeaux first growths, put it this way: 'Vega Sicilia is the Latour; but Latour of a vintage that has raisined the grapes and fried the picking crews,' a nod to the hotter conditions of the Duero.

Under the Alvarez family the business grew into a group. Alion followed in Ribera del Duero in 1991 and Oremus in Tokaj, Hungary, in 1993; Pintia in Toro is dated 1997 by some sources and 2001, its first commercial vintage, by others. A Rioja joint venture with the Benjamin de Rothschild family began with the 2009 vintage, and Deiva in Rias Baixas is the newest. Group sales rose from 1.2 million euros in 1982 to 60 million euros in 2021, and production from 200,000 bottles to 1.2 million. By 2022 the winery exported 70% of its wine to more than 150 countries, and thousands of people were on the waiting list in Spain alone.

The estate also buys back its own old vintages, mainly from private collectors, so that it can offer small vertical collections of Unico to restaurants. A 36-vintage vertical of Unico sold at auction in Switzerland in 2022 for a reported record of 111,477 euros for the whole set.

In October 2026, U.S. retailers listed single 750ml bottles of the 2011 at $449.99 and $549.99, and a three-bottle original wooden case at $1,519. These are asking prices, not sales.

The numbers

Vineyard

210 ha planted on an estate of almost 1,000 ha; about 40 ha used for Unico

Production

88,288 bottles, 3,505 magnums, 318 double magnums, 60 imperials, 3 salmanazars

Yield

3,000-3,500 kg/ha (21-24.5 hl/ha)

James Suckling

98, as listed by a retailer

Wine Advocate

96 (Luis Gutierrez), as listed by a retailer

Vinous

96, as listed by a retailer

Wine & Spirits

96, as listed by a retailer

The World of Fine Wine

93-95 (Simon Field MW, from magnum)

Timeline

1. 1859

   Eloy Lecanda y Chaves inherits the property at Valbuena de Duero.

2. 1864

   Lecanda plants Bordeaux cuttings beside the native Tinto Fino, the usual founding date of Vega Sicilia.

3. 1890

   The Herrero family becomes the owner.

4. 1894

   Lecanda dies, with 500,000 vines reportedly planted.

5. 1915

   First vintage of Unico, made under Domingo 'Txomin' Garramiola.

6. 1929

   The 1917 and 1918 Unicos are reported to win prizes at the world's fair in Barcelona.

7. 1968

   Mariano Garcia becomes winemaker.

8. Apr 1982

   David Alvarez and his children buy the estate; Ribera del Duero becomes a DO the same year.

9. 1991

   The family founds Alion in Ribera del Duero.

10. 1998

    Xavier Ausas takes over technical direction.

11. Aug 12, 2011

    Around this date the 2011 grapes go through veraison, on the usual schedule.

12. Sep 15, 2011

    Harvest of the 2011 begins, by hand into 12 kg boxes.

13. Sep 28, 2011

    Harvest of the 2011 ends.

14. 2015

    Gonzalo Iturriaga becomes winemaker.

15. Jun 2017

    The 2011 Unico is bottled.

16. Sep 2020

    A critic reviews the 2011 ahead of release and scores it 98.

17. 2021

    The 2011 Unico is released, ten years after the harvest.

18. 2022

    A 36-vintage vertical of Unico sells at auction in Switzerland for a reported record of 111,477 euros.

19. 2022

    At a 40-magnum vertical in Girona marking 40 years of Alvarez ownership, a taster rates the 2011 93-95.

The world in 2011

• Jan 1, 2011

  Estonia adopts the euro and becomes the 17th eurozone country.

• Feb 11, 2011

  Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns as the Arab Spring spreads.

• Mar 11, 2011

  A magnitude 9.1 earthquake and tsunami strike eastern Japan and set off the Fukushima nuclear accident.

• May 1, 2011

  President Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden has been killed.

• May 11, 2011

  An earthquake strikes Lorca in southern Spain, killing 9 people.

• Jul 9, 2011

  South Sudan becomes independent from Sudan.

• Oct 20, 2011

  The Basque group ETA declares an end to its 43-year campaign of violence.

• Oct 31, 2011

  The UN marks the symbolic day the world's population reaches seven billion.

Price record

This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.

By reference price, Vega Sicilia Unico 2011 is number 63 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (50 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• For its first years, Vega Sicilia could not be bought: it reached the owners' circle only as a gift.
• The 'Sicilia' in the name has nothing to do with Sicily; it is generally read as Saint Cecilia, patron saint of musicians.
• The family that bought Vega Sicilia in 1982 made its money in cleaning and security services.
• The 2011 Unico was bottled in June 2017 but not released until 2021.
• Only three salmanazars of the 2011 Unico were made.
• The estate has had its own cooper on site for three generations, and much of its oak still comes from Ohio and Kentucky.
• Unico was not made at all in 2001, 1997, 1993, 1992, 1988, 1984, 1978 or 1977.