Teso la Monja Alabaster 2008
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Alabaster went through malolactic in new French oak followed by racking to another set of 100% new barrels (the so-called 200% new oak treatment) where it remained for 18 months. Purple/black in color, it offers up a brooding bouquet of espresso, tar, licorice, minerals, lavender, and brooding black fruits. On the palate the oak is integrated but this massive effort will require a minimum of 8-10 years to become civilized. Exceptionally dense and rich but with all the right stuff present, it will be interesting to see how this behemoth of a wine turns out in another 15-20 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
A dark bruiser with heavy mocha, chocolate, tobacco, cola and crusty leather aromas in addition to massive fruit scents. It's huge in the mouth, with broad, grabby tannins, pumped-up acids and wide berry, vanilla an coconut flavors. Dark like coffee on the finish, with titanic tannins and foundation. Best from 2013 through 2016.
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Wine Spectator
Toast, cocoa and espresso flavors frame a lively core of blackberry and licorice in this modern red, which is ripe yet bright, supported by firm tannins. Remains graceful through the clean finish. Drink now through 2020. 125 cases imported.
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Teso La Monja was founded in 2007 by Marcos and Miguel Angel Eguren, the fourth winemaking generation of the Eguren family from San Vicente de la Sonsierra in Rioja Alavesa. As they have been growing Tempranillo in Rioja Alavesa since the late 1800’s, the Eguren family fell in love with D.O. Toro when they first travelled there with Jorge Ordóñez, seduced by the region’s original clone of Tempranillo and ungrafted vines.
Jorge Ordóñez and the Eguren family were the original founders of Bodegas Numanthia, which was responsible, along with their current work, for the resurrection of D.O. Toro as one of Spain’s preeminent wine regions. After the sale of Numanthia in 2007, the Eguren family founded Teso La Monja as a new challenge for the family – finding the elegance in the wines of Toro.
The family selected vineyards in the northernmost part of D.O. Toro that have a much higher proportion of rounded stones than what is typical. This produces extremely silky, elegant wines. The winemaker, Marcos Eguren, is considered by many to be the finest winemaker in Spain. His son, Eduardo Eguren, the fifth generation, also works as the winemaker at Teso La Monja.
Spanish red wine is known for being bold, heady, rustic and age-worthy, Spain is truly a one-of-a-kind wine-producing nation. A great majority of the country is hot, arid and drought-ridden, and since irrigation has only been recently introduced and (controversially) accepted, viticulture has sustained—and flourished—only through a great understanding of Spain’s particular conditions. Large spacing between vines allows each enough resources to survive and as a result, the country has the most acreage under vine compared to any other country, but is usually third in production.
Of the Spanish red wines, the most planted and respected grape variety is Tempranillo, the star of Spain’s Rioja and Ribera del Duero regions. Priorat specializes in bold red blends, Jumilla has gained global recognition for its single varietal Monastrell and Utiel-Requena has garnered recent attention for its reds made of Bobal.