The Best New Releases From Spain
EWS Tasting - October 2, 2007

When Dr. Jay Miller’s report on Spain came out in The Wine Advocate last year (Issue 169, Feb. 28, 2007), he gave so many glowing reviews and so many high scores, some people were openly skeptical of his judgment.  But within months you could find posts on the Internet from people who criticized Miller for underrating many Spanish wines!  What’s going on here?  One thing for sure, America has been hit with yet another tidal wave of highly praised wines from Spain, and it was time for EWS to take a closer look.
 
For the latest offering of The Best New Releases From Spain, we literally had more than 100 worthy newly-released Spanish treasures to choose from.  In the end, we selected 15.  Two were highly regarded wines from the very good 2003 vintage.  The other 13 came from the brilliantly successful 2004 vintage.  This was NOT a blind tasting.  However, our notes and ratings are guaranteed to be objective and have nothing to do with labels or price.

Overall, we were happy with the results, as we tasted numerous yummy wines.  Sure, in most cases our ratings are lower than Dr. Jay’s, but any day that we can taste ten wines in the 92 - 96 range is a good day.  Only one of fifteen wines failed to break the 90 point barrier.  You get the idea; this was a most enjoyable tasting.

The following are consensus tasting notes, written to share commentary and convey the overall impression the group (34 attendees) had for each wine.  Price listed represents approximate retail.  Wines are listed in the order they were poured.

We began with a flight of four exciting new releases from Rioja:

2004 Sierra Cantabria “Finca El Bosque” (Rioja)  -  $145  -  92 rating
Very dark color, almost opaque.  Rich, expressive nose recalls warm baked black fruits, smoke, leather, spice, and vanilla custard.  Aromatically, it reminds us of Hermitage.  As it sits in the glass, it becomes sexier and more attractive.  Rich and well-textured in the mouth.  Initially, we feel the tannin; this concentrated, high acid wine is “rather severe.”  However, with aeration the wine softens, becoming increasingly delicious.  We particularly like the lush black fruits and vanilla oakiness.  Long, persistent finish turning dry at the end.

2004 Artadi “Pagos Viejos” (Rioja)  -  $100  -  90 rating
Very deep color.  Bottle variation in the nose: one bottle is slightly off, high-toned with sulfur, acetone, and burnt rubber.  The better bottle was restrained, but with Bordeaux-like sweetness, oak, black earth, coffee bean, vanilla, and mint.  Elegant, refined, and well-balanced on the palate.  But critics call it “dilute” relative to other wines that surround it. It’s a youthful, tannic, well-structured wine. There’s good acidity up front, but it softens quickly, finishing short.  Ultimately, even the better bottle didn’t show much sensuality tonight.

2004 Benjamin Romeo “La Viña de Andres Romeo” (Rioja)  -  $160  -  95 rating
Very deep, slightly cloudy color.  Rich, concentrated, absolutely wonderful bouquet of violet and lilac perfume, black cherry, licorice, pomegranate molasses, and smoky oak.  Gorgeous in the mouth as well; sweet, succulent, and brilliantly made.  We really enjoy the cherry liqueur and blackberry fruit, excellent balance, and perfect acidity.  Beautifully long and consistent finish.  A noticeable majority of participants preferred “La Viña de Andres Romeo” over the more expensive “Contador” (see below.) 

2004 Benjamin Romeo “Contador” (Rioja)  -  $400  -  93 rating
Very deep color.  Rich, powerful, briary nose offers brooding scents of black licorice with a bit of blackberry brandy.  Quite youthful and dense on entry; it’s a tight wine that’s not giving up its secrets.  In terms of structure and complexity, Contador is really special, offering lots of clues of great things to come.  But this evening it’s somewhat lacking in delineation, even after an extended period of aeration.  The finish is very long and ultra rich.  These bottles were opened before their time, but showed great potential.

Our second flight featured five beauties from Ribera del Duero:

2004 Villacreces (Ribera del Duero)  -  $40  -  93 rating
Deeply colored.  Beautiful, sexy nose is sweet and earthy with a confit of ripe fruit, baked Christmas cookies, violet, and blackberry syrup.  Rich, dense, juicy, but simple on the palate, with pure, heavily extracted dark berry fruit at the core.  This is a very appealing wine with elegance and sophistication.  It’s a tannic, youthful, balanced wine with good acidity.  Very long finish with drying tannins at the end.  Yummy stuff!  Everyone agreed that this was a spectacular wine for the money!

2004 Hacienda Monasterio (Ribera del Duero)  -  $45  -  92 rating
Deep color.  Bouquet is slow to develop, but eventually reveals interesting notes of ripe black fruits, charcoal, mocha, minerals, and smoke.  Sweet, fairly tannic on entry with excellent acidic complexity. We get flavors of minerals, not-quite-ripe plums, crushed stones, and black earth.  This wine gets very high marks for complexity and actually tasting like Spain!  It’s another crowd-pleaser that cries out for a great steak!  Long, sturdy, consistent finish.  Another great value at the high end!

2004 Aalto (Ribera del Duero)  -  $55  -  95 rating
Very dark color, nearly opaque.  Sexy, classic New World nose wears its oak like perfume.  But we’re drawn to this wine’s sweet, lush, feminine, floral scents, with minerality and a touch of fresh baked Irish soda bread thrown in.  Very rich in the mouth; weighty and serious.  This is a very youthful wine, extremely rich and tannic, balanced brilliantly by hedonistic, well-extracted dark berry fruits.  Extremely long finish, with dry tannins being the last to go down the hatch.  Needs a few years to round out, but already impressive.

2003 Alion (Ribera del Duero)  -  $75  -  95 rating
Deeply colored.  Captivating aromas fly into the nostrils, displaying tremendous power, cooked black fruits, pomegranate, cocoa, leather, black earth, honeysuckle, violet, and smoke.  We were off to a great start!  Follows through nicely in the mouth; very rich and exotic.  This wine displays more Cote Rotie character than anything we associate with Spain.  That said, we love the texture and complexity of this youthful wine to go along with the lush dark plum fruit.  Balanced, dramatic, elegant, and totally delicious.  New World all the way, but so good, even traditionalists loved 2003 Alion!

2004 Emilio Moro “Malleolus” (Ribera del Duero)  -  $60  -  91 rating
Fairly deep color.  Muted nose doesn’t reveal much at first, but as it sits in the glass it opens to “a warm day in Spain,” with scents of eucalyptus, tree bark, rich kirshwasser, and smoke.  Juicy and fat on entry with complexity and noticeable tannin.  This is a concentrated, slightly disjointed wine that’s hard to evaluate right now.  We do like the delicious ripe (some suggested overripe) cherry fruit and solid structure.  But the acidity seems a tad low and alcohol is too prominent in the finish.  Try again in five to seven years.

Next, two wines from Toro and one from Jumilla:

2004 Pintia (Toro)  -  $65  -  88 rating
Very deep color.  Restrained, unappealing “wet cardboard” nose doesn’t offer much pleasure.  With aeration it gets better and actually reminds us of old vine Grenache with its dry, spicy, earthy scents.  Thick, tannic, and powerful in the mouth, but not particularly expressive.  It’s more interesting and “different” than just plain good.  There’s nothing flamboyant or sexy here.  Decent structure, mouth feel, and acidity with modest tannins.  Moderately long finish.  For whatever reason, both bottles of 2004 Pintia failed to impress our group.

2004 Numanthia (Toro)  -  $125  -  91 rating
Opaque; a veritable “black hole.”  This wine is also aromatically challenged, but we can’t help but notice the strong influence of new oak which muscles out everything else.  Powerful on the palate with caramel apple sweetness.  This is a rich, spicy, dense, youthful, concentrated wine with earthiness and good acidity.  It has lots of personality, but is obviously quite young.  Very long, surprisingly dry, persistent finish.  A little clumsy from start to finish, 2004 Numanthia should score higher as it matures.

2004 El Nido (Jumilla)  -  $160  -  94 rating
Extremely deep color.  Very sexy and rich bouquet in the modern style, with wonderful peppery spiciness and sweet aromas that recall overripe Australian Grenache.  Superb in the mouth; sweet, creamy, and complex with the fine acids leading the attack.  There’s a Three Ring Circus in your mouth, but everything is balanced and harmonious. The spicy dark fruit is well extracted.  We pick up minerals along the way, with plenty of tannin.  There were a few dissenters, but everyone else loved 2004 El Nido.

For the final flight, a trio from Priorat:

2004 Costers del Siurana “Clos de L’Obac” (Priorat)  -  $80  -  93 rating
Medium-deep color.  Fairly tight nose at first, but it really comes on to display scents of red plum, mint, chocolate, wet forest, and intense black licorice.  In the mouth, it’s a “sneaky wine” that starts off with subtleties, gains in complexity through the mid-palate, finishing with length and noticeable chocolate and mint flavors.  Along the way, it’s a dry, elegant, “feminine” styled wine with particularly nice texture.  It’s not a blockbuster, just a wine that keeps getting better each time you come back to it.  Overall, very well received by our group.

2004 Clos Mogador (Priorat)  -  $90  -  90 rating
Deeply colored.  Extremely ripe (many would argue that overripe is the correct word), raisiny, exotic, spicy, alcoholic nose.  It was controversial, as the room was split on the aromatics in terms of thumbs up or down.  On the palate, this wine is sweet, rich, youthful, showing a lot of alcohol.  Some people admired 2004 Clos Mogador for its well-extracted, glycerin-laden black fruit, chocolaty sweetness, and sheer power.  Others found it to be “excessive” and “over-the-top.”  Both sides agreed that this wine needs at least five years to settle down.  Long, sweet, somewhat hot finish. 

2003 Mas Doix “Doix Costers de Vinyes Velles” (Priorat)  -  $125  -  96 rating
Deeply colored.  Bouquet is as lovely and complex as any encountered this evening.  We are drawn to scents of perfume, caramel, lilac, oak, spice, and smoke.  Rich, intense, sweet, juicy, and somewhat tannic in the mouth.  We admire this wine’s complexity, dark berry fruit, and overall balance.  The acidity is excellent.  Very long and extremely tasty finish.  The crowd goes wild, then goes home happy.  This wine was actually released in 2005, but was included this evening because of its spectacular showing at a similar EWS Spanish tasting two years ago.  We wanted to check on its development.  Obviously, it’s still spectacular!

Executive Wine Seminars, Inc.
P. O. Box 1791
New York, NY 10113-1791

Tel: (800) 404-WINE (9463)
E-Mail: ews.wine@instantlink.com

Howard Kaplan and Robert Millman, Co-Directors
Reprinted with permission.