The eponymous top-of-the-range 2017 Teso la Monja comes from one of the driest and earliest years in history. The wine is ripe and hits the scale at 15.1% alcohol while keeping good freshness and acidity. It's always produced with the grapes from a 1.8-hectare plot that has more limestone than the average in the zone; the grapes were hand destemmed by a team of 75 people, fermented in an open oak vat and went through malolactic in an egg-shaped oak vat built by Taransaud, an "Ovum," where the wine was kept until July 2018. The élevage continued in three new Bordeaux barrels from July 2018 to February 2020 when they bottled 890 bottles. The wine is ripe and oaky, quite extroverted, aromatic and open. The vineyard receives the north wind, and it's cooler than other vineyards—the ripening is slower and very homogeneous. It's also floral, and the tannins feel a little stiff, with the chalky sensation on the palate, a texture rather than a flavor. They get only 500 kilos of grapes per hectare, which brings perfect ripeness. This is a wine that needs a long time in bottle; this is still marked by the élevage, and I still cannot picture where this is going to go, we'd need a time machine for that...

The scarce and pricey 2014 Teso la Monja is always released later than the other wines, as it has an extended élevage, 26 months in three new French oak barriques after going through malolactic in a wooden egg. The wine is very ripe (15.18% alcohol) and quite oaky, concentrated and heady. It feels like a wine from a different era than the rest of the portfolio, produced in a very specific style that won't please everybody. I feel the toast of the barrels here, much more than in the recent wines. It's aromatic and showy, very oaky, powerful and toasty, with an almost sweet sensation in the finish. For fans of powerful and well-oaked Tempranillo. Only 879 bottles were filled in February 2017.

There are only 898 bottles of the 2013 Teso la Monja, their most expensive (yes, four digits!) and scarce bottle. Despite being a cooler and wetter vintage than the average, the grapes from 1.8 hectares of extremely old vines still achieved high ripeness (15.16%). The bunches were hand destemmed by a team of 55 people (!), and it fermented in an open-top oak vat followed by malolactic in an egg-shaped oak vat. It matured in three brand new Bordeaux barrels for no less than 24 months. This is by far the oakiest of all the wines I tasted from the winery, with abundant spices, smoke, toast, balsamic notes of incense and cigar ash. To me this much oaks detracts from the wine and tends to erase the character, even though it should resurface with time in bottle, as the vineyard certainly has the concentration and oomph to overcome the élevage. This is riper, perhaps reflecting the winemaking from those years, as the wine is released later than the rest of the range. It's super powerful but with balance, at an XXL size. For fans of the style and disposable income, a wine to have with the proverbial T-Rex t-bone. No need to rush pulling the cork. It follows the line of previous vintages with perhaps a tad more freshness in 2013. It was bottled in February 2016.

The rare 2012 Teso la Monja was cropped from a year with cold nights and warm days, and is always produced with the grapes from a small plot of 1.8 hectares planted with ancient vines on soils that have more limestone than other vineyards in the zone. The hand-picked grapes were hand-destemmed by a team of 50 people on September 15 and put to ferment in an open-top oak vat, and some 35% to 45% of the grapes were manually punched down. Malolactic was carried out in an egg-shaped oak vat from Taransaud and the wine saw two years in French oak barrels. This is more concentrated, more extracted and with noticeably more oak. We need to realize that this is also a warmer and riper vintage, which clearly comes through when I tasted this next to wines from much cooler vintages like 2014, and especially 2013. There is a stronger imprint from the oak in this wine compared with the others, with plenty of smoky notes and sweet spices, and also higher alcohol (15.2%) from an extremely dry vintage that extracts more aromatic compounds from the barrel; when you have slightly lower alcohol and more acidity—or freshness—the wine seems to integrate the effect of the élevage in a better way. This is more in the style of the wines from the 1990s, with more of everything, but to me a little too much oak. The oak seems to have provided abundant, dusty tannins that give it a dryness in the palate that can lead to a sensation of rusticity and less finesse than the other wines. Very good in its style, but sometimes less is more. This clearly needs more time in bottle. Only 89 bottles were filled with the 2012 vintage.

The eponymous 2011 Teso la Monja, the fourth vintage of this single-vineyard Tempranillo, comes from a 1.8 hectare plot planted with ancient vines on soils that have more calcium carbonate (limestone) than the average in the zone, and are covered with boulders and gravel. I had the chance to visit the vineyard and even when they show it, they don't usually explain that it's the source for this wine. Yields were a catastrophic six hectoliters per hectare and the bunches were manually harvested and destemmed on September 16th. The grapes fermented in an open oak vat for some ten days and macerated for 21 days. Malolactic was in an egg-shaped oak vat called OVUM and the élevage was in brand new French barriques and lasted two years. There are plenty of oak-related aromas, lactic notes and toast, as well as plenty of black fruit and hints of black cherries in liqueur. The oak recedes after 30-45 minutes and the nose turns a lot more exotic, perfumed and exuberant. The grapes, no doubt, must have been phenomenal, and the wine is there. The palate is full-bodied with fine grained tannins, lots of volume and a slightly warm finish. This is a concentrated, well-oaked Toro that needs some time in bottle to finish integrating the oak and show its true colors. Only 821 bottles were filled in February 2014.