Winemaker Notes
40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Carineña, 15% Garnacha Negra
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2004 Mas de l’Abundancia is composed of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Garnacha, and 25% Carinena (the latter two varieties from vines over 80 years of age) and aged for 13 months in 40% new French oak. Deep purple in color, it offers up a classy bouquet of wood smoke, mineral, scorched earth, black raspberry, and black currant. This leads to a full-bodied wine with a plush texture, layers of spicy black fruits, licorice, soft tannins, and exceptional depth and length. It will evolve for several more years in the bottle and drink well through 2020.
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.