by Tom Hill

A self-admitted wine geek, Tom lives in Northern New Mexico and works as a computational physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory doing numerical neutron transport & large scale code development. He has been tasting wines since 1971, participates locally with a couple of large tasting groups in his area, and is practically a fixture at most California wine festivals, such as the Hospice du Rhône, Rhône Rangers, and ZAP. Other interests: Tom is heavily into competitive sport fencing (foil & epee), biking, cooking, basketball, skiing, backpacking, mountain climbing.

 

Spanish Wine
Tasted some Spanish wines last night. This was a SantaFe tasting organized by Howard & Rhoda Sherry. Howard provided the wines, the knowledge, and the expertise. Rhoda, as usual, provided the charm, the good looks, and the personality.
Pesquera Tinto Crianza (Tempranillo) '95: Dark color; strong Am.oaked bit dusty/smokey slightly low fruit nose; soft fairly lush dusty/earthy some blackcurranty strong vanilla/Am.oaked flavor; long dusty some blackcurranty bit hard/tannic Am.oaked finish w/ fair tannins; needs 2-6 yrs; lots of dusty character & bit closed.
Pesquera Reserva Especial (tempranillo) '94: Very dark color; deep intense cedary/smokey/Am.oaked ripe blackcurranty fruit nose; hard/tannic intense Am.oaked/vanilla/cedary ripe blackcurranty Cab-like some dusty flavor; very long Am.oaked/cedary/vanilla tannic ripe blackcurranty Cab-like fruit finish w/ ample tannins; needs 5-10 yrs.
Pesquera Janus Gran Reserva '91: Dark color; very strong Am.oaked/vanilla/ bourbon very intense fruit/blackcurranty complex rather dusty/old vines nose; very lush mouthfilling ripe blackcurranty strong vanilla/bourbon/ Am.oaked layered complex flavor; very long lingering concentrated ripe blackcurranty very bourbon/vanilla/Am.oaked finish w/ ample tannins; needs 5-15 yrs.
Pesquera Janus Reserva '94: Very dark color; very intense cedary/pencilly/ vanilla/Am.oaked very intense fruit/blackcurranty rather dusty complex nose; hard/tannic very rich/intense/blackcurranty very strong vanilla/Am.oak/ cedary rather dusty/old vines flavor; very long intense blackcurranty fruit strong vanilla/bourbon/Am.oaked hard/tannic finish; needs 5-15 yrs.
Condado de Haza Tinto Finca Y Vinedos (Tempranillo) '95: Very dark color; very intense layered Cab-like/blackcurranty/blackberry some vanilla/oak nose; rich ripe lush some hard/dusty ripe blackcurranty some vanilla/oak flavor; long hard/tannic ripe blackcurranty some vanilla/cedary/oak finish w/ fair tannins; needs 4-8 yrs; very good price at $22.00
Condado de Haza Tinto Alenza '95: Black color; intense smokey/vanilla/toasty/ some charred/pungent rather closed light ripe blackcurranty nose; huge rich ripe blackcurranty some closed strong pungent/smokey/charred/oak flavor; very long lingering bit closed ripe blackcurranty strong pungent/charred/ toasty/oak finish w/ ample tannins; needs 5-15 yrs.
Torre Muga Reserva (Tempranillo) '94: Very dark color; strong blackberry/ blueberry dusty/licorice/pungent very pencilly/toasty/cedary/oak nose; rich intense fruit blackberry/blueberry very dusty/old vines intense menthol/toasty/pungent/oaked flavor; very long lingering rather dusty/old vines strong blackberry/blueberry menthol/toasty/pungent rather licorice finish w/ ample tannins; best Rioja I've ever had.
Palacio Finca Dofi (60% Garnacha, 5% Carignena, 35% CabSauvignon/Syrah/ Merlot) '95: Very dark color; intense licorice/blackberry/boysenberry/ Grenache meaty/complex/dusty some vanilla/oaked nose; very rich very intense Grenache/blackberry/boysenberry/licorice light vanilla/oaked flavor; very long lingering very intense blackberry/Grenache/boysenberry some earthy/ dusty rather tannic finish; loads & loads of complex Grenache fruit; needs 5-20 yrs.
Palacio L'Ermita (80% Garnacha, 20% CabSauvignon) '95: Black inky color; very intense blackberry/black cherry cola/boysenberry/licorice/pungent chocolaty complex/dusty some menthol/vanilla/oak slight volatile/aromatic nose; very rich intense mouthfilling licorice/chocolaty/blackberry/black cherry cola dusty/complex old vines tannic some menthol/toasty/pungent oaked flavor; very long lingering layered intense black cherry cola/black- berry very intense Grenache/licorice/chocolaty complex/dusty/old vines some vanilla/toasty/pungent/oaked finish w/ ample tannins; needs 5-20 yrs; incredible Grenache.

And a brief bloody pulpit:
Howard & Rhoda fashioned this tasting to demonstrate to the non-believers the quality revolution that has taken place in Spanish winemaking & grape growing over the last few yrs. They accomplished this in spades; an incredible set of definitly world-class wines; one of the best tastings our SantaFe group has ever had. Too bad the wines are so scarce and so expensive.
Tempranillo: These wines shatter any doubts about Tempranillo being anything but a first-class noble grape variety; something they ought to be persuing in California, clearly. I don't quite yet have a handle on what Tempranillo is supposed to be. It has a lot of blackcurranty Cabernet-like character w/o the herbal overtones that Cab often has; with a lot of the earthy/ dusty character you find in Bordeaux; but less of the bass notes & more hight-toned notes a bit like Carignane. But world-class grape it is.
Grenache: I've sung the praises (as has John Alban) of Grenache and its world-class status before, but will harp on it again. These two Grenaches are about the best Grenaches I've ever had; better than any Rayas that I've had; certainly better than the pitiful '96 Rayas. Some of the Aussie Grenaches have been close, but a bit heavy-handed on the oak. But I must say that the Alban and the Andrew Murray Grenaches are awfully close... and at a fraction of the prices. We need more quality Grenache in Calif.
Oak: All of the Tempranillos has a strong definite oak component to them. But in none of the cases did I feel the oak treatment was out-of-control or overbearing as in many of the Aussie wines. All of these had ample fruit to support all the oak. They reminded me a lot of Ridge MonteBello in that sense... lots of noticible oak but not a floozy-like identifiable American oak character that Zins often have.
These wines were all huge intense extracted very young wines. I found my vocabulary woefully inadequate to describe what I was tastng in these wines. The notes all sound very much alike, but the wines were all very distinctive. How well will they age??? I have little doubt these will be magnificant wines down the road. Yet I found a certain weirdness in all of these wines, a slight out-of-balance character that suggested to me perhaps an over-enthusiastic use of saignee to increase to concentration and extraction; something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
Guess it wasn't so brief after all. Sorry about that.