Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Monastrell
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
Coming from limestone soils and all Monastrell, raised in new, second, third, and fourthuse French oak barriques, the 2020 Mira Salinas Monastrell sports a vivid purple hue and offers remarkable purity in its crème de cassis, crushed violets, spice box, crushed stone, and graphite nuances. It's concentrated, medium to full-bodied, has remarkable purity, and ripe tannins.
-
James Suckling
Red cherries, red plums and rose hips on the nose, with a hint of olives. It’s medium- to full-bodied, fruity and supple, with a salty twist to the red fruit.
-
Wine Enthusiast
This deep violet-red colored wine has a nose of blackberry and smoked bacon. A touch of smoke continues on the palate, joined by fluid tannins and black cherry, Mission fig, milk chocolate, orange zest and mint flavors with a touch of earthiness on the finish.
Best Buy
Full of ripe fruit, and robust, earthy goodness, Mourvèdre is actually of Spanish provenance, where it still goes by the name Monastrell or Mataro. It is better associated however, with the Red Blends of the Rhône, namely Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Mourvèdre shines on its own in Bandol and is popular both as a single varietal wine in blends in the New World regions of Australia, California and Washington. Somm Secret—While Mourvèdre has been in California for many years, it didn’t gain momentum until the 1980s when a group of California winemakers inspired by the wines of the Rhône Valley finally began to renew a focus on it.
Alicante is a port city in southeastern Costa Blanca and municipality in the Valencian Community of Spain. The eponymous DO is a non-contiguous appellation, divided between east and west. Along the eastern coast you find La Marina, a subzone known for its perfumed sweet white wines made from Moscatel de Alejandría; other white grape varieties include Merseguera and Malvasía. The drier, more extreme climate to the west is home to Monastrell, which accounts for 75% of total DO vineyard plantings. Other major red grape varieties include Garnacha Tintorera and Bobal, a thick-skinned black variety native to the Levante (the eastern edge of the Iberian Peninsula). Bobal had been destined for bulk wine production during much of its modern history but a new generation of winemakers today are taking advantage of the wide availability of old vine material, to produce full-bodied, concentrated wines, which are increasingly complex. In the last ten years, Alicante DO has gained popularity and respect for its new light, fresh wines and interesting varietal reds produced by pioneering bodegas.
Alongside the other wines emerging here, Alicante’s classic dessert wine, Fondillon, has been exported for centuries and is enjoying its own renaissance.