About this WINE
Tempranillo/Tinto Fino
A high quality red wine grape that is grown all over Spain except in the hot South - it is known as Tinto Fino in Ribera del Duero, Cencibel in La Mancha and Valdepenas and Ull de Llebre in Catalonia. Its spiritual home is in Rioja and Navarra where it constitutes around 70% of most red blends.
Tempranillo-based wines tend to have a spicy, herbal, tobacco-like character accompanied by ripe strawberry and red cherry fruits. It produces fresh, vibrantly fruit driven "jovenes" meant for drinking young. However Tempranillo really comes into its own when oak aged, as with the top Riojas where its flavours seem to harmonise perfectly with both French and American oak, producing rich, powerful and concentrated wines which can be extraordinarily long-lived.
In Ribera del Duero it generally sees less oak - the exception being Vega Sicilia where it is blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and then aged for an astonishing 7 years in oak and is unquestionably one of the world`s greatest wines.
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Description
Alvaro Palacios is doing great things in the Rioja Baja, once seen as the poor relation to the more established Alta and Alavasa sub-regions, with a history of dusty co-operatives and rather simple Garnacha based wines. Garnacha still has a part to play, of course, but it is no longer the majority shareholder here.
This Montesa is a blend of 45% Tempranillo, 40% Garnacha, and 15% shared between Graciano and Mazuelo ; the assemblage has been aged aged in French oak for 14 months. The acclaimed 2009 vintage has yielded a rich and generous wine, with notes of hedgerow, blackberries, vanillin and spice all evidenced on the palate. Excellent length and fine tannins complete the picture; a classic Riojan coda, but played on modern instruments.
(Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer)
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