A must-read for #TeamMourvedre / #TeamMonastrell geeks, like myself.* (It’s from last week, but I decided to wait to post it until today for a little Mourvèdre Monday action.

As a result my expectations were not high, so I was pleasantly surprised by how many of these wines I liked. Naturally, we found a few in the thick-and-jammy style, but they were far and away the exceptions. Many more of the wines seemed to possess an earthy, distinctly Spanish point of view. That is to say, they were full of dark flavors reminiscent, perhaps, of plums and licorice, but without the brooding, sometimes savage character of Bandol.

*Watch out for the NYTimes paywall. I’ve been reading so much of Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog this election season that I’d reach my limit of free articles, so I had to switch computers to read the Monastrell article.