2014 Vega Sicilia Valbuena 5 Ribera del Duero 750 ml

In 1864, Don Eloy Lecanda y Chaves, the founder of Vega Sicilia, had a dream of creating

the greatest wine in Spain. 156 years later, his estate, the maker of the cult collector Único cuvée, remains the epitome of this idea—the benchmark of Spanish reds for over a century.

Tasting Vega’s wines can be a life-changing experience; the inky purple 2014 Valbuena 5°, known as the “baby Único,” may be that kind of experience for you. Two 96-point scores place this dark Ribera del Duero beauty at the top of 2014’s trophies in Spain.

Bold masculinity and elegance all in one wine, it’s bountiful on the nose with dark fruits wrapped in freshly roasted espresso, broad-shouldered on the palate and driven by a dark cocoa and blackberry intensity.

The 2014 Valbuena is “truly spectacular!” in the estimation of Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, while James Suckling declares: “The power and freshness here is extraordinary. Deeply layered. Superb.”

In the iconic Gran Reserva Único, aged for 10 years, the vintage drops slightly into the background. The Valbuena, released after 5 years of aging but often composed of the same meticulously farmed Tempranillo fruit and vineyards, shows a more vivid impression of the growing season. With the structure to cellar, it’s also approachable now, already a star.

Another distinction: Único bottlings are major investment pieces, running upwards of $500 per bottle. The 2014 Valbuena is normally $215; today, deeply slashed off the original sale price for Wine Access members, Vega’s legendary heritage can be had at $160 per bottle. If you’re a bargain hunter waiting to pull the trigger on a sharply discounted prize for the cellar, this is a deal you can’t afford to miss.

Of Vega Sicilia’s 518 sloping acres of vineyards, 345 are used for the Valbuena and Único releases, sorted into 52 distinct blocks based on the categories of soil, age of vines, and variety of grapes. Maniacs for precision, the Vega team and technical director Gonzalo Iturriaga de Juan have identified 19 soil types on the property. They maintain it is the dirt—not the vine age, not the vintner, not the barrel—that gives Vega’s wines their unique character. With chalk and limestone on the higher slopes, gravel and clay on the lower, it’s the complexity of the mineral mix that gives these grapes, coaxed to perfect maturation in the Mediterranean sun, such finesse.

As Vega Sicilia has pursued ever greater degrees in perfection—even using helicopters to deflect harmful frosts—the Valbuena has risen in stature. It is not thought of as a second wine, but as an extraordinary standalone expression on its own. Luis Gutiérrez, the Spain critic for Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, took part in a double-blind tasting at Vega Sicilia and “was so taken with the finesse, elegance and perfume of one of the samples to the point of thinking it was a Grand Cru Burgundy.”

That sample was a Valbuena bottling. Lightly dosed with Merlot, aged for five years in a mix of French and American wood, this is a taste of Vega Sicilia at its best—at about the lowest price you can find.