Tomas Cusine Llebre 2013
-
Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Blend: 82% Ull de Llebre (Tempranillo), 8% Garnatxa, 5% Samsó & 5% Syrah.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Llebre is a multi-grape blend, Tempranillo, Merlot and Cabernet with some others, which spent some time in barrel. It has aromas of toffee with lactic notes, fruits of the forest with some graphite and toasty oak giving it a very commercial profile. The palate has strong oaky-creamy flavors and good acidity. It develops nice balsamic aromas of oregano, garrigue and underbrush. This is very good for what it is, and is very good value.
Tomas Cuisine dramatically changed the winemaking at Castell del Remei when his family took over the estate in the 1980’s. Here, at his own estate, he is using these same progressive techniques, but with a very different microclimate. The grapes here are much later to mature than lower down in the valley. Maceration can take up to 25 days for some varietals and all are vinified separately. Tomas employs a partial ageing in oak for some added layers of complexity.
Castell del Remei is located in Western Catalonia in the D.O. of Costers del Segre, just to the west of Barcelona. A small winegrowing region, Costers del Segre is divided into six sub-zones and covers 3,886 hectares. Tempranillo is widely planted here, as is Garnacha, and as of the last 20 years, high levels of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot have been planted.
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.