94 points Tim Atkin, MW:
"(13.8%). Flor accounts for 90% of the production of Pingus and uses Tinto Fino grapes from 40 hectares of vineyards with an average age of 25 years in the village of La Horra. Commendably refined and floral in a very hot vintage, partly thanks to early picking, this is youthful, appealing and alluring, with nice tension and freshness, deftly integrated 20% new oak and flavours of plum, pomegranate and red cherry. 2026-34. (2024)"

Grape: 100% Tempranillo

Flor de Pingus is treated to the same exacting viticulture as Pingus, and can rank among the region’s top wines on its own merits.

94-95 pts Wine Advocate
The nose of the 2022 Flor de Pingus has a peachy note (peche de vigne!). It's perfumed, elegant, more fruit-driven, tender, delicate and ripe without excess (but possibly the ripest of the 2022s, perhaps the influence of the younger vines). It has a tender palate with glossy tannins and a rounder mouthfeel. The finish is dry, even a little austere, with fine chalkiness. In general, the 2022s showed quite well, much better than expected. The wine was blended and clarified and is in tank waiting to be bottled. They expect to bottle the 2022s in June (or late May). They expect some 89,000 bottles, a little less because the young vines suffered more with the heat.

I met with Peter Sisseck to taste the bottled 2021s and the 2022s that are about to be bottled. 2021 was a dry year after a rainy 2020 (a year of mildew, botrytis and Covid!), and he noticed the change of climate so decided they have to change viticulture. He has changed to higher yields—20 hectoliters per hectare, which is still very low but higher compared with the 12 in the beginning—and an earlier harvest, compared with the initial 1995, when he harvested in early October. Today, it's impossible to do that or you get 20% alcohol. He now harvests all the grapes in September, and he believes he has gained freshness in the wines. Pingus is still the same vines from 1929, where the individual dead vines are replaced with their own massal selection, so the average age of the vines is not all from 1929.

Flor de Pingus is now 100% from La Horra, where there was a land consolidation when they ripped up 60 hectares of vines and there was good land available. So, today he has 35 hectares for Flor de Pingus, including 12 to 15 hectares that they planted in the last few years. It's all head-pruned with echalás, with an individual post per plant, the way he finds works for him, planting 5,000 vines per hectare (at one by two meters) to work with very small tractors. In 2021, following some of the leading producers in Burgundy, he decided to not cut off the shoots which avoids the development of secondary bunches and stresses the plant. The plants grow to 2.5 meters, and the vassal leaves don't get dry. If you cut off, the vassal leaves get dry. He's going to try something similar with the old Pingus vines.

The other thing he discovered was Garnacha, something that comes from PSI, a natural way to lower the pH (the same as the Cabernet Sauvignon he used at Hacienda Monasterio). So, he planted also some 5% Garnacha in the Flor de Pingus vineyards, and the two varieties are fermented together. In 2006 and 2007, the wines had higher alcohol (15% to 15.5%), but there's more extraction with higher alcohol the more you extract from the wine and from the barrels. Those wines are evolving better than he expected, but he prefers to keep the alcohol at around 14%.

2021 was warm and dry, with some peaks in July that were really high, but then the average temperatures in 2022 and 2023 were maybe higher. The 2021s were bottled in June/July 2023, and the 2022s should be bottled in June/July 2024. The alcohol levels are all very similar for both vintages, around 14% (he tries not to reach 14.5% if possible).

For Flor, there's some 20% new barrels and now some new 6,000-liter oak vats to vinify and, in the future, also age the wines. For Pingus, there's no change—it's already 100% second-use barrels (from Flor and PSI).

As for 2022, the year of heat and drought made them think that climate change was really here. They harvested starting on September 5, very early, and finished before many had started. But the wine delivers beyond the expectations; they are rounder and gentler wines that are more fruit-driven, peachy and ripe but with freshness with energy.

As they have purchased 50 hectares for PSI, they found a small plot on a slope in Peñaranda with a field blend of Tempranillo, Garnacha and Albillo that was planted in the 1960s; he has done some experimental vinifications, and eventually, there might be some new single-vineyard PSI wines. I tasted the wine from that plot, tentatively called Bancal, from 2022. I also sampled a 2022 Blanco, an experimental white made with 100% Albillo from the plants scattered in the old vineyards, produced in a very Burgundian way, with full lees and in new barrels. Both are very impressive.