Bodegas Teso la Monja Almirez 75cl 2017

100% Tinta de Toro (= Tempranillo).

Almirez is een topwijn uit Toro

Nadat Vega de Toro, de producent van Numanthia en Termanthia, was overgenomen door Moët & Chandon, kochten de voormalige eigenaren van Vega de Toro mooie oude wijnpercelen en werd gestart met de productie van Almirez, Victorino en Alabaster.

De druiven voor deze 'Almirez' zijn afkomstig van 15 tot 65 jaar oude wijnstokken en worden handmatig geoogst in de tweede week van oktober. Na de vergisting rijpt de wijn 14 maanden op Frans eiken. 

Almirez heeft tonen van zwarte bessen, caramel, koffie, mineralen, tabak en eikenhout. De tannines zijn goed geïntegreerd en de afdronk is lang en vol.
Mooi op dronk, maar kan zich tenminste tot 2022 nog verder ontwikkelen. Uitstekende combinatie met ossehaas, wild, lamsvlees, pate, jamon en harde kazen.

The Wine Advocate:

"The second wine in the price hierarchy is the 2017 Almirez, produced with vines aged 10 to 35 years old from their 72 hectares of vineyards in the villages of Valdefinjas and Toro. It fermented in stainless steel and matured in French oak barrels, 30% of them new, the rest second use, for 14 months. 2017 is one of the driest years with one of the earliest harvests ever, but surprisingly enough, the wines feel lighter, fresh and aromatic, expressive and open and do not show any heat. Furthermore, it feels like a fresher year in the sense that the wine integrates the oak quite well. The change here, as Marcos Eguren explained, has been in the toast of the barrels, something they started in 2015; they have lighter toasts, from a long and slow toasting of the oak, and the barrel respects the fruit a lot more. Fine-tuning continues... 95,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in April 2019.

Teso la Monja is the second project created by the Eguren family of Rioja after they sold Numanthia to LVMH. They now produce 300,000 bottles split into five different labels. I tasted mostly 2016s and 2017s, two very different vintages. There was no frost in 2017, which was warm and dry and one of the earliest harvests on record. But the wines are incredibly fresh and balanced, I'm tempted to say fresher than the 2016s... Analytically they have lower alcohol and higher acidity. We shall see..."

Luis Gutierrez, Aug 2018