Val Sotillo (Bodegas Ismael Arroyo), Ribera del Duero “Finca Buenavista”

There’s so much wine packed into this $20 bottle it’s hard to believe. It’s “a lot of wine for the money” not only in terms of its viscous, full-bodied personality but because there’s genuine history behind it.Bodegas Ismael Arroyo isn’t some bulk-wine pumping station: It is one of the five founding wine estates of the Ribera del Duero DO and the careful steward of some of the region’s oldest Tempranillo vines. It is, of course, precisely this long heritage that enables Val Sotillo to deliver a wine of this quality at such a shockingly low price (when you’ve amortized your costs over the course of centuries, you’ve got a competitive advantage). So, if you haven’t yet experienced the impressive range of wines from Ismael Arroyo, today’s wine is the perfect bottle to start with—an ‘entry-level’ bottling that sure doesn’t perform like one. Bottled after just six months of aging in oak, “Finca Buenavista” is 100% Tempranillo with all sorts of power and dusty earth but plenty of freshness t