Winemaker Notes
The Eguren family fell in love with this land more than 15 years ago, seduced by its pre-phylloxera vines and deep rooted vineyards, meticulously chosen to translate the minerality of the soils in powerful and elegant reds. And their love for Toro remains unchanged.
This wine has character, identity and expression of Tinta de Torro with elegance, freshness and complexity.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Strong oak influence. Really modern, spicy and cedary. Ripe black plum aromas and flavors. Long with glossy, fine tannins. Great wine. Try from 2020.
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Jeb Dunnuck
More expensive than the Almirez, the 2015 Victorino offers more graphite and chocolate notes as well as terrific black fruits and mulled spices, full-bodied richness, fine tannin, and an elegant, yet also structured style. Give it a few years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Victorino is produced with Tinta de Toro, the Tempranillo strain from the zone, from vines that are 45 to 100 years of age, planted ungrafted and dry farmed. It fermented destemmed and crushed for nine days, followed by 21 days of maceration. Malolactic was in new French barriques, and the élevage was also in new French oak barrels and lasted 20 months. This is always a powerful, concentrated and generously oaked red, with plenty of spices and smoke, a touch of wild herbs and ripe berries, keeping its poise even in a warm year like 2015. With concentration and power as well as abundant, fine-grained tannins, it is showing quite young and is in need of a little more time in bottle. 40,000 bottles produced.
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Wine & Spirits
The Eguren brothers, from Bodegas Sierra Cantabria in Rioja, were among the pioneers who revitalized Toro at Numanthia. Now they have returned to the region to work with pre-phylloxera vines, producing this ruggedly powerful Toro red. It’s smoky, with voluptuous black fruit and plenty of tannins to hold all that weight. This needs at least five years to show its complexity.
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.
Notoriously food-friendly, long-lasting and Spain’s most widely planted grape, Tempranillo is the star variety of red wines from Rioja and Ribera del Duero. The Rioja terms Joven, Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva indicate both barrel and bottle time before release. Traditionally blended in Rioja with Garnacha, plus a bit of Mazuelo (Carignan) and Graciano, the Tempranillo in Ribera del Duero typically stands alone. Somm Secret—Tempranillo claims many different names depending on location. In Penedès, it is called Ull de Llebre and in Valdepeñas, goes by Cencibel. Known as Tinta Roriz in Portugal, Tempranillo plays an important role in Port wine.
Spain's remote, high elevation Spanish wine zone between the regions of Bierzo and Ribera del Duero produces intense, full-bodied reds made from Tempranillo, locally called Tinta de Toro. This local variant has adapted to the region’s climatic extremes and recognizing its potential, top producers from Ribera del Duero and Rioja have invested heavily in its vineyards.