This is the fourth installment of Mourvèdre Monday, VINEgeek’s yearlong deep-dive into the Mourvèdre/Monastrell/Mataro grape. Check out the other posts in the series here.
After I announced that 2010 would be The Year of Mourvedre here at VINEgeek Enterprises, I got lots of great recommendations from my fellow winos. This bottle was suggested by @Sonadora of Wannabe Wino blog.
Producer: Juan Gil
Grapes: 100% Monastrell (the Spanish name for Mourvèdre)
Appellation: Jumilla (say who-ME-ya)
Vintage: 2007
Vineyards: From estate vineyards of 40+ years of age. Soil: “shallow, chalky soils on a bed of limestone and rock”
Winemaking: 12 months in French oak barrels (not sure what % new)
Alcohol: 15%
Price: I paid $12 at Spec’s in Austin.
My tasting notes: Very deep color. On the nose I get dusty red and black fruit accented by a rich, chocolate/mocha note, mint and a spicebox character. There’s also a touch of greenness, as if you could smell the grape stems. In the mouth, it delivers ripe plummy/blackberry fruit, a brighter blueberry note and a touch of earth with chewy, grippy tannins in a full-bodied package. Enough acid on the finish and good, spicy length, though the alcohol can be felt in a sort of cool-mint kind of way. It really opens up with time in the glass and on the second day.
Overall impression: A rich, heady mouthful of flavor that avoids crossing the line into fruit bomb territory, yet delivers “oomph” for a reasonable price. B/B+
Free association: Something about this wine makes me think of Mr. T as B. A. Baracus. According to Wikipedia, in Spain he was known as Mario Baracus. Awesome.
More info:
This wine was scored 90 points by Josh Raynolds, for Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar.
Check out the chalky soil and gnarly vines (note: I don’t know for sure if this photo is of the vineyards used for this bottling or other Juan Gil bottles):
Ahh, the A-Team. A ritual for me on Thursday nights in the 80’s. Me, my mullet, a bowl of ice cream…memories!
Great review too. You gave it a B/B+, that’s pretty darn good.
Josh
The golden age of television, for sure. I did really enjoy this wine, especially after it was open quite a while. I think it’s a nice intro to Mourvedre/Monastrell for first-timers and I think fairly widely available. Thanks for the comments.
This was always a top seller for 3 reasons: eye catching packaging, consistent 90+ scores and I liked it. Anytime someone wanted something a bit meatier and different, I get them onto this and seldom were they disappointed.
Thanks for the comment, Kevin. Yeah, I could see this being popular. For the reasons you give, plus the easy-to-remember and easy-to-pronounce name. I think that’s big for people sometimes.
Excellent review. I’ve been itching to try a new grape/wine and now I believe I have a candiate. Now the challenge is if I can find this particular wine here at home.
Cheers, LB
I have been hearing people recommend this one all over the place, but have not had it. It has finally ventured into “must try” territory. When you hear three or four trusted wine peeps recommend the same wine, you have to give it a try. Now if I can just find it here in the arm pit of the wine retail world, I’ll be all set.
Les – If you haven’t had Mourvedre/Monsatrell, this is good place to start. If you try it let me know what you think.
Ben – Hope you can find it, especially now that you can’t order from online retailers.
Hi, love the Toy Story movies, great movie!