Winemaker Notes
Teso La Monja is a fascinating journey full of emotions, which makes you travel to that little unreleased plot. It should be kept in your memory as a precious and fragile treasure.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
There's increasing complexity in the wines, and the 2022 Victorino shows energy and power, natural freshness and acidity. It was selected from 35 hectares of older vines. The wine has a lot of floral nuances and notes of violets and ripe fruit without excess. It has a round and velvety palate with volume and ripe, elegant tannins. This matured in new barrels for 20 months, and the oak is neatly integrated and folded into the fruit. Rating: 94+
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Jeb Dunnuck
Named for winemaker Marcos Eguren’s grandfather, the 2022 Victorino is grown in estate vineyards with older soils where the Tinto de Toro/Tempranillo vines range from 45 to 100 years old. Roasted coffee and tangy red fruit highlight a well-structured, full-bodied palate of complex acidity and freshness with powerfully supple tannins. The finish puts a coda to the power and intensity, finishing in a burst of balsamic and wood spice.
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James Suckling
Aromas of black cherries, violets, dark cherry compote, baked black plums and sweet spices. Flavorful and full-bodied with ripe, rich fruit and tight but fine-grained tannins. It shows the ripeness and power from Toro without getting too extreme.
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Wine Spectator
There's a saturated feel to the boysenberry and blueberry fruit on display in this fluid red, but the profile is balanced nicely by the tang of plum skin acidity and structured by supple tannins. Fragrant details of violet, wild thyme and cedar, plus a minerally underpinning, expand on the lasting finish. Drink now through 2037. 3,000 cases made, 750 cases imported.
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.