2020 Daniel Gomez Jimenez Landi Méntrida Las Uvas de la Ira Vina de Pueblo

Community Tasting Notes (5) Avg Score: 89.3 points

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  9/9/2023 - Rote Kappelle Likes this wine: 92 Points

  Was it the effect of taking a week off drinking (what a stupid thing to do)? Was it the fact that I was listening to Bathory's 'One Rode to Asa Bay' followed by Scatman John? Was it that it was a sunny day and the rugger world cup was on - a sport where one combines the power of the group over the individual, considerable amounts of violence with technical skills and a large quantum of intellectual input?
  
  Or was it that this is just a jolly good wine that happily rides down its enemies and spills their blood to water the vines?
  
  Being a sensible chappy, I think all these things played a part. The tricky thing with wine is that analysed without passion and feel you have a subject deprived of its essence. On the other hand, if you just take it subjectively, you descend to the level of the average League or Soccer/Football (F#*^ed ball) fan, or the average drunken bar room chunder, if you get my drift. I won't even acknowledge diversionary wanks like basketball.
  
  I like the Spanish. I come to this wine with good will a forethought. The Iberians have pride and passion but dismiss their intellectual gravitas at your peril. I find Sherry greater than Port because it engages my mind more. Their table wines are waiting to take off, from a very solid base. I admire the Catalans for El Caganer and the Basques for ETA and rugger and cussedness. I believe they will lead me to a life of crime. This wine is from Toledo and I see it as an inheritor of the spirit of PCE before 1968. There is only one way to win in revolution; you must water the tree of Liberty with the blood of your enemies.
  
  I am a Grenache sceptic. I see it as leaning to right deviationism. There is always with it the risk of Bukharin. However, the basic drive of the grape is well directed - wine purity and freedom. Keep it under a close watch, allow it to flourish but guide it, with extreme prejudice where need be.
  
  So, here we have a lovely colour - bright but not that anodyne aspect of too many New World proto-fascist wines. There is some slightly burnt umber/rust/brick. Human and grape potential unleashed. There is depth here, promising some real substance on the palate. Woody Guthrie stirs.
  
  The nose combines the sweet, candy naughty things that rub the wrong way with my Calvinist and Communist soul. However, it combines with some roast meat, spice and earth and that works nicely. These are the hairshirt and ashes. At heart Bukharin was a good sort. Raise the Jolly Roger, fly the red flag, bring together hammer and sickle; these are the secondary characters in wine.
  
  The palate delivers the goods, comrades. I will start with an objective aspect - the finish is very long. The intensity is excellent. Tannins are firm, but natural feeling and though they might be finer they work. They are honest and well balanced. Tom Joad would understand. We have the Hegelian dynamic in operation.
  
  The other aspect of the wine dialectic is wonderful; fruit is strawberry and raspberry, but it is driven by earthiness and roast meat. Rivera and Sotelo and Molo have watered the tree, against their will - this is good.
  
  This is a serious wine with a lot of character. I would not chill this, despite what I read. I would, in fact, serve it at about 18 degrees (room temperature - unless you are a pansy). My advice is to shoot anyone who suggests otherwise. Then find the other fascists and deal with them. You have to work off a firm base, as this wine does.
  
  Let's be clear - is this great wine? No.
  
  Is this dashed good wine? Yes.
  
  Does it give more than the average lolly water, dilute port Grenache? Abundantly yes!
  
  This machine kills fascists. El Caganar points their way with his least desirable aspect.
  
  A bottle of this and we march, the Ebro is ours, Thalmann escapes. First, we take Manhattan (a very good cocktail, by the way), then we take Berlin (Neu Kolln and raze the rest). This is Rote Kappelle, what else do you expect?
  
  And yes, we run closet Tories out; bye bye Orwell. I will take the Lincoln Battalion, Thalmann Battalion and even Hemmingway - they understood. Orwell fiddled and made tidy, artificial empiricist distinctions, whilst ignoring the advice of his Spanish comrades in arms because he was a little Englander and knew better than them. A bullet in the chest so he could smoke a cigarette. Of such things neither wars nor revolutions are won.
  
  It isn't Animal Farm or 1984 that was right but Brave New World. Orwell was like Edmund Burke - when confronted with a chance for real change he got frightened, engaged in little distinctions and his reflexive reactionary nature came to the fore. Nothing of the mind, just the mind led by the pusillanimous heart.
  
  Now ask yourself this - is it good wine that provokes all this, even if you hate what I write? I think the answer is yes. You might come to a different view on the politics, you might even come to a different view on the wine, but this is a wine for 'Tender is the Night', or 'Blood of My Enemies', for strong emotions and the beauty of belief.
  
  Could Orwell write? Of course, the answer is yes with 42-point capitals in red and ten exclamation marks. Was he a courageous man? The answer again is yes; objectively yes. Was he right? Well, on that we can disagree, passionately, as the cause deserves and this wine (and others like it) might enable people to cross the divide.
  
  I believe this wine will lead me to a life a crime; for whom the bell tolls? Like Greece in 2013, the Spanish should have taken a bottle of this and told the bankers to shove their loans up their...So many roads... 'Who do you think has it easier? Ones with religion or those just taking it straight?'

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  12/7/2022 - melvinyeowq wrote: 89 Points

  Leo's birthday: Better than my previous experiences with this producer but still not completely convincing. The wines remain too easy-going and jammy for me, but did put on weight with air. Some earthy notes, not completely clean. Others liked this a lot more and I could see why as it definitely had character and a distinctiveness.

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  10/13/2022 - MuddyBoots wrote:

  Served slightly chilled - as was recommended. Mid red hue - quite pale. Brilliant still. Slightly muddled earthy notes mixed with ripe dark red fruits on the nose. Touch of iodine ? The full-on texture on the palate of Grenache at 15%. Succulent. Flows effortlessly over the palate. The fruit is not compotted but its ripeness cannot be in question. The fruit has a slightly dried sensation. There is certainly an intensity to the ripeness. Much more savory and more concentrated than I expected. And more serious. Some length. Ripe, sweet and small scaled tannins grip the gums. I sensed no real heat on the end but this is not something I am not particularly sensitive to, so others may find this more pronounced. I think this needs food and time. It changed quite a bit over a couple of hours - the fruit coming more to the fore. I have had this wine in vintages where it showed more restraint and preferred these. But it is early. I think I had a misconception that this wine would be lighter in weight. Wait. The label evokes Don Quixote - I love it.

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  7/15/2022 - VinoMomNola Likes this wine: 90 Points

  An amazing rendition of Garnacha, and the kind that I like. Fruit and acidity are well balanced, on the finish this wine offers a ride from one to the other. Lighter body than riper garnachas but powerful enough to be paired with leaner beef. Can't wait to try this producer's top offering.

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  4/27/2022 - ManhattanBeach Likes this wine:

  A post-WFN awards dinner with old friends (28-50 Kensington, London): This was a stunner. Smokey spine-tingling nose, red fruit with pink peppercorns, Decanter's "windswept mix of dried earthiness and vermouth-like bitterness" (you have to love that), like a light Syrah in texture.

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