Community Tasting Note
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ricard Likes this wine: 89 points
February 22, 2009 - 90% Tempranillo, 10% Graciano ABV 13.5% I want to talk about this wine because it's a textbook example of a the kind of wine which is slightly unfashionable, and yet has a number of intrinsic virtues that we should all be celebrating, if we want the world of wine to remain diverse and exciting, rather than predictable and dull. There are now a large number of very successful wines in Rioja that have possess "international" characteristics: for example, power, concentration, intensity, fruit and extraction. Many of these wines command huge prices and spectacularly high ratings. The traditional wines (the Crianzas, Reservas and Gran Reservas) don't get the same level of attention. But a number of wineries are resisting this wave of innovation and are nonetheless producing wines of considerable elegance, typicity and distinctiveness, and at accessible prices. The Dominio de Conté Reserva is an excellent example of a wine that is Rioja through-and-through: red cherry at the core, gentle signs of ageing at the rim (brick/orange), lovely sweet spicy nose, saddle leather and cigar box, and then a very firm, acidic mouthfeel that has perfect balance - none of that cloying sweetness or agressive tannicity that is the hallmark of excessive extraction or too much exposure to new oak. The finish is quite brief, but very lively, almost dancing on the tongue. A wine that could be good on its own, with meat, or even with fish. Now that's versatility - a good thing. Difficult to rate over 90 because it's not obviously a tour de force or an impressive wine, and it's slightly unhelpful that it's in the 16-18 euro region, but I'll give it that famously problematic rating, 89 points.
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2 Comments
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weinverkoster.de commented:
9/15/16, 11:59 AM - I read this note, while having this in sept. 2016 ! Everything you wrote is 100 % true. And now it is 7 years older and did not change at all. So may be it deserved another 2 or 3 Points for this.
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ricard commented:
9/16/16, 4:03 AM - Hi weinverkoster.de - what a lovely comment, thank you. And so good to hear it's still drinking well! I must get some more.