Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2010 Finca Morenillo is produced with extremely old vines of Morenillo, the local variety from Terra Alta (also known as Mando there and elsewhere) aged for 15 months in new French oak. The wine has a bright ruby cherry color with some orange tints around the edges, and a complex, subtle and elegant nose of red fruits and flowers intermixed with forest floor notes and plenty of sweet and brown spices. The palate is medium-bodied, with fine-grained, slightly dusty tannins and supple flavors of pomegranate and blood orange with a spicy finish. A very elegant and different Terra Alta.
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.