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
Avant-garde but in tune with its heritage, La Montesa is emblematic of its maker Alvaro Palacios. This is unabashedly glossy, with pronounced aromas of vanilla and clove from 50% new oak, and tannins that melt in the mouth like the best fillet steak.
Alvaro continues to champion Garnacha: there’s a shade more Tempranillo in this blend, but the Garnacha really makes its presence felt in a hot, dry vintage like 2012, contributing lashings of ripe red fruit flavours.
A crowd-pleaser to be sure, but with the credentials to woo committed oenophiles.
Will Heslop, Buying Team
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