Community Tasting Note

rcb25 wrote:

Friday, March 4, 2022 - Tight and big on opening. Lots of cedar notes, asian spices and opulent ripe black and blue fruits. Blueberries, plump blackberries, violets, golden needles. Quite the big wall of French oak with cedar, vanilla, carob, a soupçon of fresh tobacco leaf. Well integrated, fine-grained tannins with medium high acid. A decidedly long, rich, toothsome and mineral mid palate. Regrettably the initial finish seemed to fall steeply off as if someone just shut things off abruptly. Quite a jarring and unenjoyable drinking experience. With about an hour and a half of air that shifted to turn from a hard and fast fade away. Still jarring, but a drastic improvement. An hour after that, even more improvement on the finish, but it is clear that this wine is still partway through its slumber. My original CT comment noted to begin checking in on this starting in 2024. Against my past better judgement, I decided to check in on it early as a dinner companion is fond of Rioja wines. Past me seemed to know better, I should listen to him more often. Very well made and polished wine. Now it just needs time.

This wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered and the car ride to the restaurant stirred up some of that up more. There was some larger sediment on first pours. Though after the bottle was left standing upright, the gross sediment appeared to fall to the bottom leaving a clean wine when poured. If one is planning to drink it in the future, do yourself a favour and stand it upright a day or two ahead and give it a long decant.

ABV: 15.20%
Closure: long natural cork
Stem: cheapo restaurant BDX stem
Decant: N/A
Extra info: 92% Tempranillo, 4% Graciano and 4% Mazuelo. Aged 19 months in 100% new French oak. 5,900 bottles produced

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