2008 Tormaresca NePriCa

The facts:
2008 Tormaresca NePriCa
Region: Puglia, Italy
Variety: 40% Negroamaro, 30% Primitivo, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon
Aging: Stainless steel tanks and in bottle.

Price point:
I picked it up for just under $10. An internet search found this wine for anywhere from $7.45 to $11.99.

My take:

A while back, I picked a bunch of random wines that I’d never had with the intention of reviewing them. This was one of those wines. Admittedly, we’ve probably had it 3 or 4 times before actually writing this review, so obviously it’s one we like.

This one quite literally has a nose of cherry vanilla with a hint of tobacco. Yes, I know, we said from the get-go that we weren’t going to talk about wines that way, but I can’t help it. That’s exactly what this wine brought to mind for me. Perhaps the wine made me want to wax poetic, to steal a term from Jonathan. In my color terms, I’d say it smells purple to dark red.

It tastes purple/dark red to slightly brown, but not too earthy. And it’s somewhat dry, but not overly so. It also has a relatively long finish, which is a bit surprising at this price point. I find the wine to be very well balanced.

This wine is definitely not one note; perhaps two or three? It has a couple of layers. The dark red cherry gets you up front and then it mellows to the purple followed by just a hint of spice. In an ideal world, I wish it were a bit more complex to match the length of the finish. But again, at this price point, I’m not arguing the point of complexity. In my oh so humble opinion, this is a very nice wine for under $10. It’s more like getting a $15 bottle for less than $10.