2007 Veleta Nolados

We had this wine at the 2011 International Wine Expo back in February. We bought a few bottles at the time and saved one to review. I’ve been looking forward to opening the last bottle, so when we talked about reviewing a wine tonight, I knew exactly what I was going for.

The facts:

2007 Veleta Nolados
Variety: 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Cabernet Franc, 20% Tempranillo

Region: Granada, Spain
Aging: 12 months in American and French oak



My take

In a way, I get dark purple and light pink on the nose. I find that surprising and don’t really know how to process that; not sure what to expect.

As for the flavor..., It’s difficult to get it’s full measure quickly. To borrow a phrase from Jonathan, this is one I want to get to know.

I’d say it tastes like a blend. It has a lightness from the Cab Franc and added complexity from the Cab Sauv. There is definitely a range of flavors, but I can’t seem to pinpoint its character. It’s not hugely complex with a wide array of flavors, but it’s not one note either. There is some spiciness in the front and the middle. And it has a relatively long finish. The texture is great - It has a full, creamy/velvety, soft texture to it.

Overall, the Veleta Nolados has a bigger and bolder profile than I’m used to drinking, but I rather enjoy it. It’s very well balanced, easy to drink, with a nice mouthfeel (yes, I just said “mouthfeel”), and a range of flavors. I only wish I had more.

Price Point: Updated 8/18/2011

When an internet search yielded no US stores selling this wine, I emailed the winery about their availability in the U.S. They responded immediately putting me in touch with their U.S. distributor in Virginia, Andes Importers, Inc. They were very helpful and quick to respond as well.

If you're in the DC metro area, Andes Importers works with Arrowine, Red, White and Bleu, Wine House, and Unwined. While the Veleta Nolados may not be on the shelves at those stores, I'd suggest mentioning Andes Importers and see if they'll put in a special order for you. I know I will.

If you're not in the DC area, contact Andes Importers directly - they'll be happy to tell you if there are stores in your area that might special order from them. And the more interest we can drum up in this wine, the better!

2007 Veleta Nolados

This one has been a long time coming, for multiple reasons. Its been a while since we have posted a review, and we ran into this wine back at the DC international wine expo in February.

This was one of the first years that they have been selling wine at the expo, and luckily for us, this is one of the ones they were stocking. Tasting and buying wines at a large scale wine event is always a bit dodgy; your taste buds (and level) can get shot pretty quickly and more often than not, everything is tasty after a certain point. Regardless of that, the Nolados made enough of an impression on us for us to scoop up three bottles, of which only one was remaining. That lone bottle was saved for you dear friends, and tonight seemed the night that we should record our thoughts of it for posterity.

“So, how is it?” you might ask. Terrible with grilled chicken and potatoes with a Mexican cheese blend would be the first answer. While I have never really been big into food pairings, I think it’s safe to say that particular combination was terrible, and will largely remain un-described with the exception of the phrase “terrible, tannic, and how did I already plow through two bottles of this and think this was still a good idea?”

The answer was cheese, a good cabot. It cleansed the palette, was yummy, and frankly I was still hungry, so needed a quick post dinner snack to set me straight and appreciate the wine. With the cheese down I set about to drinking (a noble pursuit if there ever was one) and getting the full measure of this wine (for the third time). Given the multiple bouts I’ve gone with the Nolados, I think its safe to say its pretty good. It's got an extremely long finish, in fact it's long enough that it might actually rival the movie Contact for length, and yet exceed it for interest level. While the wine is indeed interesting, the sensation is a bit narrow in range, with the flavors being well defined, if not overly broad. It comes across not quite velvety, but lets call it veloury, which while totally not a word…is still fun to throw out there.

Final verdict. Buy a bottle. It’s an enjoyable romp, the kind that makes you want to stretch into two bottles in a single stretch. I’ve been through a quarter case now (obviously not in one sitting… What kind of lush do you take me for?) and will be keeping an eye out for it on menus wherever I travel.

Tempra Tantrum

Trifecta…triple threat.. hat trick

So we decided that we would try a full suite of wines and review them as an entirety. So it’s the Tempra Tantrum wines from Spain, with each being a tempranillo blend. We’ve had them for a while now wanting to do this, but as you have probably guessed by the flurry of recent updates, we just haven’t really had the time to get around to reviewing wines (jokes….I make them).

Grenache/Tempranillo

Going into this, I had assumed this was likely to be my favorite. For the record I was terribly terribly wrong about that that. I had originally planned to equate both the taste and the smell of this wine to dirty socks, at which point I received an injunction from the sock lobby preventing me from making said comparison. Instead I shall liken it to gym clothes. The nose is just off and the flavor isn’t much better. The wine is flat, and while it has a long finish, you almost wish it doesn’t.

Shiraz/Tempranillo

Well…pinch me I am dreaming. The star of this show is the wine statistically speaking the one I am the least likely to pick out of a lineup. While I am a sucker for a petit syrah odds are I tend to start spouting incredibly pejorative things anytime the word shiraz is used in my presence. While it does have some larger than life characteristics, notably that somewhat jammy jam that comes with the territory, I found this to be the softest on the palette, almost like a gentle misting of flavor on the tongue (For the record: if that sounded like I was waxing poetic about a shiraz I will deny it in court). To its detriment, the finish is somewhat short, and the wine is a bit one note, but if complexity is not your destination, then this will certainly serve as a pleasant distraction.

Cabernet/Tempranillo

While I enjoyed the shiraz blend the most, this one I will crown the best wine (given the usually measures). I feel like it had depth, complexity and character. The cabernet had all the structure and body that the tempranillo was lacking, the nose was pleasant and the finish was about where you expected it to be. It’s a good solid functional wine, but despite all of its merits, it was somehow lacking in soul for me. Oddly, this is where all the quality in the world breaks down…I’d rather have an interesting wine, even if its flawed, rather than just a good one.

So what’s the bottom line? I’d probably pass on all three of these wines in the future. They aren’t that good, and I’m glad I don’t know what we paid for them. It was a fun experiment, and now that I’m done writing, odds are I am pouring a full glass of the Shiraz.

2008 Tempra Tantrum (Tempranillo Blends)

Well, since we haven’t done a review in 3 months, we decided to give you a 3-fer (or is that 3-for?). I can’t believe we’re opening 3 bottles of wine for the 2 of us on a Sunday evening, but hey…, it’s all for the cause.

Here are the facts:

2008 Tempra Tantrum Tempranillo/Grenache
Variety: 60% Tempranillo, 40% Grenache

2008 Tempra Tantrum Tempranillo/Shiraz
Variety: 60% Tempranillo, 40% Shiraz

2008 Tempra Tantrum Tempranillo/Cabernet Sauvignon
Variety: 60% Tempranillo, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon

Region: Tierra de Castilla, Spain
Aging: Micro-oxygenation
Winemaker: Rocío Osborne


My take
Tempranillo/Grenache

I would describe the nose on this as pinkish-purple. The taste and feel - I’m having a hard time describing the taste; the feel is easier. It’s a bit juicy, but not chewy. It has a round, full flavor up front with a hint of spice in the middle, and a moderately long finish (not short, but not long either). However, there’s not a lot of complexity in this wine. (Of course, for the price point, complexity isn’t something I’d expect.) It’s a bit dry as well.

This wine was fine as a sipping wine and might accompany food just fine, but in my opinion, it does not go well with grilled pork that has a southwestern flavor to it. Once I introduced the grilled pork to the picture, the wine turned purple and ashy.

Now, on to the...

Tempranillo/Shiraz

The nose on this is reddish; it brings strawberry to mind. The taste – a bit on the alcoholy side. Without food, it’s a bit chewy at first, then it falls flat. It’s short and feels like there’s no middle to it. This strikes me as new world in style – big and fruity. I just wish there were more going on.

The southwestern grilled pork we had for dinner actually made this wine fuller and extended the life of it in my mouth. Without food, this was my least favorite of the three. With the pork, this was my favorite. Just goes to show you how your experience of a wine can change given circumstances!

Tempranillo/Cab Sauv

The nose on this smells purple-black and a little green. It tastes much the same – rather dark purple and it definitely has some of that musty dampness to it that I love (that’s what I smell as green). This is the driest of all three, but not in a suck-your-mouth-dry-I-desperately-need-a-drink-of-water kind of way.

Again, after introducing the southwestern grilled pork, this wine turns ashy and unpleasant. Without the pork, this was by far my favorite. With the pork, it’s not the wine I’m reaching for.

If you want more info on the wine, vineyard, etc., check out their website at www.tempratantrum.com. They also make a Tempranillo/Merlot blend that I didn't pick up because I figured 3 was enough. :)

Price Point: Between $7 and $10 per bottle.

2007 Onix Classic

Ok ok… So when I said I got dragged out a while back for a “good” Australian wine that wasn’t exactly accurate. Truth be told, I was lured out to New Heights with the promise of two interesting wines. The first being the aforementioned Cat amongst the pigeons, and the second, being the topic of this particular missive.

So we actually had the Onix a while back, and never really got around to reviewing it. Sadly my notes on the original tasting were lost when I decided to erase the notes on my blackberry to make room for directions for a thousand mile ride in the rain (of course at the time I didn’t know it was going to rain, but that’s neither here nor there). That being said, I couldn’t in all good conscience review the wine without trying it again. That gets us to snag #1.

Snag #1 New Heights has Gin….lots of it. We went back, I tried it again and got derailed by cocktails. Win some; lose some…that’s my motto, and hell who isn’t willing to try a third time. And this, dear reader, is where we ran into snag #2.

Snag #2 nobody carries it. Now if my gin soaked memories served me correctly, it was pretty good and I want to take a crack at it while at the keyboard so that I could transcribe its loveliness into prose so I would just pop down to the store and grab a bottle and review it again (in the name of science of course). The problem with that being, we couldn’t really find it anywhere locally. That is, of course, until Kerri’s brother completely randomly found it and bought it for her as a thank you gift for babysitting.

So bottle in fridge, it was time for a reckoning. Well…a reckoning less in the OK Corral kind of way and more in a, hey let's have some wine!

So it’s a Garnacha and Carinena blend, which in my book would bode well. Pulling it out of the fridge and pouring a glass brings you a wine that is surprisingly purple, and I wasn’t really ready for that. Swirling it around in proper hoity toity fashion gives off a somewhat fruitier nose than I was I was expecting. Color me unimpressed. Right about then I was wondering what I saw in it the first two times that had me coming back for thirds. I needed to think about this and take its full measure in, there had to have been something to it but I wasn’t getting it from a sippy sip.

After pouring a glass and relaxing, letting it open up if you will, I am now in firm belief that my wine fridge is just too cold. It was free, and the temp knob doesn’t really work, and I am thinking 55 is just too cold (its stuck there). So warmed up and opened up, here is what I thought (Yes I know it took 500 words to get to the wine, but honestly its more entertaining this way and you didn’t really have anything better to do).

It's old world, first and foremost. That fruit sensation and nose declines greatly once it opens up, and I am sure if I were a true wine snob, I might actually describe it as blossoming, but since I’m not, I won't. The fact remains however that this wine does well with some time and some air. So much so, that I now recall why I am having it for the third time. Why you say? Simply put, this wine doesn’t suck. I am going to put it on my list of wines that everyone should try at least once. I wont say go out and buy a case, but seriously think about having a romp through the hills of Priorat (yes its hilly there, and yes I did look that up just to make that joke work). Beyond that, I’d like to see this wine again in say 5 or so years (or maybe find a bottle from say 2000-2004) I suspect with a little age, it might go from “ok” to love in a bottle.

We had it with no pairings any time we drank it, but I can see it with a big chunk of Manchego and a pile of Chorizo.

2007 Onix Classic by Vinicola del Priorat - Reviewed by Kerri

And we're back. Apologies for the radio silence on our end. You know how it is at the end of summer: trips to take, things to do. But, we knuckled down and drank some more wine - just for you. ;)

The facts:

2007 Onix Classic by Vinicola del Priorat
Region: Priorat, Spain
Variety: 50% Garnacha (aka Grenache), 50% Carinena (aka Carignan)
Aging: Stainless steel

My take:

This is a wine that I originally tried at New Heights restaurant back in March. We tried to find it locally at a few different wine stores and had some trouble, but then as luck would have it, my brother and sister-in-law actually found it (without knowing I’d been looking for it) at a Whole Foods in Virginia. Excellent - thanks guys! Time to go in for a second try. (Or is it a third by now?)

The nose is a bit dark red-purple. The taste comes across the same – dark red; plummy even. I get a bit of spice and complexity in the middle and a somewhat dry finish, though I wouldn’t call this a dry wine. It feels like a medium-bodied wine to me – not super light, but not super heavy either.

This is a 2007 and I find myself wondering if it would age well. I can kind of taste the earthy brown in it, but get more of an alcohol-like taste to it that I suspect might go away if it were another couple of years old. (And incidentally, that alcohol-like taste actually mellows out a bit as the wine opens up. I like the wine better after it's had some time in the glass to open up.)

Bottom line – it’s okay. I don’t love it, but I’d certainly have it again if I were to come across it. And as I said, I’m really curious as to what it might taste like after aging another 2 or 3 years. Right now, I’d call it a general sipping wine.

Price point: $13 - $17