Teso la Monja Alabaster 2016
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Jeb - Decanter
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James
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Winemaker Notes
Alabaster is the Eguren family’s representation of the elegance that can be achieved in wines made from the oldest Tinta de Toro vineyards. Profound balance, silky texture, and maximum expression of terroir.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Made from 100% Tinta de Toro that spent 18 months in French oak, the 2016 Alabaster has a rich, powerful bouquet of blueberries, blackberries, crushed violets, Asian spices, and chocolate. This ripe, sexy, incredibly opulent wine has beautiful depth of fruit, ripe, present tannins, no hard edges, and a great finish. It's one of those sexy and opulent wines that stays elegant and seamless. It’s going to knock your socks off over the coming 15-20 years.
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Decanter
Despite high levels of tannins, they’re silky, fine-grained and almost totally integrated into the dense, complex palate. Raspberries, elderberries, red plums, fennel and dark chocolate with smoky minerality. Incredibly precise; long and resonant, with sure-footed grace. Drinking Window 2020 - 2036
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Wine Spectator
Rich and dense, this big red delivers currant, blackberry and kirsch flavors, with cocoa, anise and mineral notes. The muscular tannins are well-integrated, softened by balsamic acidity. Powerful, in the modern style. Best from 2021 through 2036.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Alabaster was produced with grapes from ancient ungrafted vines, three plots that total 12 hectares that yield no more than 800 grams per hectare, but bear in mind, there might be 900 to 1,100 plants per hectare. The grapes were hand-destemmed and fermented in open vats after being foot trodden. The wine matured in new French barriques for 18 months. 2016 was a cold and wet year when the grapes ripened slowly and late. Yields were high and the plants took time to ripen all the grapes, so alcohols are a little higher, acidity lower and there are plenty of tannins. This is more backward and undeveloped than the 2017. One to wait.
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James Suckling
A Toro with very polished and refined tannins, a silky texture and beautiful fruit. Full body, yet racy and tight with a lot of tension and focus. Big and structured wine. Needs four to five years to soften. Try after 2022.
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Teso La Monja was founded in 2007 by Marcos and Miguel Angel Eguren, the fourth winemaking generation of the Eguren family from San Vicente de la Sonsierra in Rioja Alavesa. As they have been growing Tempranillo in Rioja Alavesa since the late 1800’s, the Eguren family fell in love with D.O. Toro when they first travelled there with Jorge Ordóñez, seduced by the region’s original clone of Tempranillo and ungrafted vines.
Jorge Ordóñez and the Eguren family were the original founders of Bodegas Numanthia, which was responsible, along with their current work, for the resurrection of D.O. Toro as one of Spain’s preeminent wine regions. After the sale of Numanthia in 2007, the Eguren family founded Teso La Monja as a new challenge for the family – finding the elegance in the wines of Toro.
The family selected vineyards in the northernmost part of D.O. Toro that have a much higher proportion of rounded stones than what is typical. This produces extremely silky, elegant wines. The winemaker, Marcos Eguren, is considered by many to be the finest winemaker in Spain. His son, Eduardo Eguren, the fifth generation, also works as the winemaker at Teso La Monja.
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.