Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A more substantial and intense wine is the 2014 Triton Tinta de Toro. This is from a fabulous appellation in Spain, which deserves more and more attention for the high-quality wines emerging from there. Yields were 0.81 tons of fruit per acre from the sandy, alluvial, gravel soils. The wine was aged in one- to three-year-old Burgundy and Bordeaux barrels for six months prior to bottling. This is beautiful and a great value from Ordoñez. It is a dense ruby/purple with a sweet kiss of crème de cassis, roasted meats, steak tartare, and a touch of licorice and underbrush. The soft tannins and fleshy, medium to full-bodied mouthfeel offer substantial flavor and intensity for this price-point. Drink it over the next 3-4 years.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Making an excellent statement about the once under-the-radar Toro region, the 2014 Triton Tinta exhibits bold and concentrated black fruit aroma and flavors. The wine's elegant finish pairs it nicely with grilled hamburgers. (Tasted: November 28, 2017, San Francisco, CA)
Verdejo is one of Spain’s most historic white grapes, as it has been in production since the Roman times, several thousand years ago. After over fifteen years as the lead producer of quality Verdejo in Spain, Ordóñez chose Puras, Valladolid, as the best appellation within Rueda for growing Verdejo. This isolated corner of the D.O. is home to sandy soils intermixed with river stones that were deposited tens of thousands of years ago when the Duero river was several hundred miles wide. Due to the sandy soils, this sub-appellation of Rueda, shaped like Italy’s boot, resisted the phylloxera. Bodegas Ordóñez takes advantage of this unique terroir to produce wine from its ungrafted vineyards, the oldest of which was planted in 1885. Jorge’s philosophy is to age all of their wines sur lie and barrel fermented in both stainless steel and large format, mostly used French oak.
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.