It’s the first #MourvedreMonday of the month, so here’s a roundup of Mourvèdre-related interestingness from the past month: February, the dwarf month. (I wonder if someday, February will be downgraded from full month status to “dwarf”, like poor ole Pluto.)
- The Leon Stolarski Blog stoked my jealousy this month with a post describing a major Domaine Tempier tasting which included 19 bottles, from a couple rosés to 7 vintages of La Cabassaou.
- Compounding the jealousy was @bclittle sharing a pic from a tasting of 7 domestic Mourvèdres including Tablas Creek, Anglim, Broc and Cass.
- At the always-worth-reading Drinkster blog, Philip White recommended two Aussie Mourvèdre/Mataros: Yangarra 2010 Mourvèdre McLaren Vale and Esperanza 2010 Monastrell McLaren Vale. (He also suggests blending the two and calling it “Yangaranza Matourastrell”.) Here’s a taste:
It’s intensely-flavoured, velvety wine, with aromas that subliminally hint at 6B pencils, Parade Gloss boot polish, and freshly-polished horse tack. Its fruits are somewhere between the rooty-fruity fragrance of borscht – cool beetroot soup with yoghurt – and the meaty twang of blueberry. Its flavours are somewhere between those fleeting notions, inked with the reek of times and tastes past: it’s nostalgic stuff, with soft tannins that remind me of the grainy images in old movies. It’s never heavy, jammy, or gloopy. It’s the sort of red I can drink in the morning, without food, just for its powerful memory triggers. I could have it instead of lunch, or with some, in which instance Wah Hing tea-smoked duck comes immediately to mind. I could have it in the afternoon, with or without Alison Paxton’s exquisite Kangarilla Creamery goat cheese from next door, and then, come to think of it, I could have it with dinner, with dribbly lamb cutlets and mash. In other words, I recommend it. Trust Unca Phil.
- The Reverse Wine Snob tasted and liked the Tarima 2011 Monastrell, a $5.99 Costco find.
- The March 31, 2013 Wine Spectator failed to call out a single varietal Mourvèdre in it’s annual California Rhone review. The full listing of 600+ wines with scores is available here. The highest scoring varietal Mourvèdre — if you’re into scores, that is — is the Cypher Mourvèdre Paso Robles El Pelon 2009 (90, $55). They made up for mostly snubbing Mourvèdre by running a Domaine Tempier/Bandol feature in the same issue. (I’ll not link to it because it’s behind a paywall.)
- Speaking of Bandol, La Vigne reports that 4 hectares of Bandol AOC vineyard land is threatened by construction of a new stadium (unless my French is even weaker than I thought).
We can’t end on that note, so I’ll have to sneak back into the end of January for this…
- Via Twitter, I found an early contender for Mourvèdre Pairing of the Year, which isn’t even a real thing, but after reading this I just might have to make it a thing.
Wow! just ate a lamb's spinal cord and washed it down with #Bandol @TheMarrowNYC happy BDay to me.
— John-Paul Quattrone (@jaypeeq) January 30, 2013