Winemaker Notes
Ideal with most Mediterranean dishes, especially with pasta, risottos, cheese. It is also an excellent accompaniment to poultry and game birds.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Focused yet dense, this modern red shows vibrant flavors of currant, licorice, black pepper and smoke. The structure is solid, yet the wine remains lithe and lively. Needs food to unwind. Drink now through 2017. Smart Buy
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Caliza is a blend of 65% Syrah and 35% Petit Verdot aged for 12 months in seasoned French oak. Toasty black fruits, violets, espresso, and licorice inform the bouquet of this dense, purple/black, layered wine. It opens in the glass to reveal savory blackberry and blueberry flavors, moderate tannin, and plenty of spice, especially pepper. This well-proportioned wine is surprisingly light on its feet and an outstanding value to boot.
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.