Winemaker Notes
Pair with: game meats, T-bone, Castilian Gazpacho, suckling pig or cured Iberico ham.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
This varietal Bobal from a designated pago (Finca Terrerazo) within Utiel-Requena is loamy, spicy and loaded with black plum and blackberry aromas. A ripe, pure palate is chock full of baked plum, cassis, spice and chocolate flavors, while the finish is chewy, complex and chunky. Drink through 2019.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Finca Terrerazo is a selection of old Bobal from low-yielding vineyards planted between 1970 and 1975 on sand and chalk soils. It was fermented in French oak vats with indigenous yeasts after a severe selection. The different plots aged separately in French barriques until after malolactic then they were blended and matured to complete around 18 months in barrel. In this warm vintage the wine is ripe with aromas of blackberries, plenty of balsamic notes (aromatic herbs) and some hints of cigar ash and peat. The palate is medium to full-bodied with abundant tannins and some flavors of wood toward the finish that leave it ending slightly bitter. I think this would benefit from some more time in bottle.
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.