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 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.

2008 Tormaresca Neprica

It’s high time we reviewed this wine. Kerri picked this one up on a lark and the first time we had it, I felt more like drinking and less like reviewing, so it was consumed sans documentation. Since we found it interesting and wanted to review it Kerri bought us another bottle.

I drank that one when she wasn’t looking. (This may have happened twice, I lose track sometimes.. but hey…who’s counting) So another bottle(s) was procured to provide the source material for this missive.

While the name is a bit kitschy for my liking, with Neprica being an amalgamation of the grapes in the wine (Negroamaro, Primitivo, Cabernet) it immediately meets one of my criteria for wines I want to drink; exotica grapes. While I suppose grapes are not exactly exotic in nature, there are varietals that you don’t tend to see every day. I find these days that I love to explore wines that are not primarily Cabs, Merlots, Pinot Noirs etc.. Given that, here we have a solid candidate with old world grapes chock full of Italian blended mystery.

Ever since running into one at Proof in D.C. I have been a sucker for a Negroamaro. There is something mysterious in the name itself, that, for me, seems to be passed down into the wine. You don’t see them every day, but in poking around in stores with a decent Italian wine selection you are sure to find them. The Negroamaro is native to southern Italy, and as such, is one more reason I need to go there.

In describing the wine, I am going to skip the usual aromatic metaphors, as I believe there are professionals out there paid to do just such a thing, and go with a visual instead. This wine, is like red satin sheets on a waterbed in a candle lit room. Think about that for a bit. I’d go into more detail, but honestly, at that point, I’d just be adding unnecessary words to a beautifully crafted image, one that is wholly sufficient to describe my impressions of this wine.

I’m a huge fan of this wine, and at under $10 there is no reason you shouldn’t have a bottle or four in your wine fridge, rack, cabinet, cupboard, sock drawer, or where ever else it is that you store your wines.

2005 Surfrider Red - reviewed by Kerri

The facts:

2005 Surfrider Red
Region: Malibu Newton Canyon, California
Variety: 73% Merlot, 26% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Petit Verdot
Aging: French oak, 18 months
Winemaker: Christian Roguenant



My take:
Upon first pour, the wine was rather red and smelled red-pink. A full glass looks purplish and smells a little jammy.

The first sip was rather surprising. I didn’t get that full, in your face, jammy sip of a California wine that I was expecting. On the contrary, it is more mellow than what I normally expect from a California wine. After reading about the wine and the winemaker at the Rosenthal Estate website, it's not that surprising. The winemaker lived in Burgundy for some time and the wine is aged only in French oak. (For reference, I make it a practice not to read anything about the wine before I taste and draft my review. I don't want to be biased or unduly influenced by what I read prior to writing my review.)

I’d call this one a good sipping wine.

I find it to be medium bodied with a nice mouth-feel. It’s not too dry (though it’s more so if you pull some air over it), but it’s also not very creamy. It’s somewhere in the middle. Very nicely balanced. The downside to this wine is fairly short and you’re not going to get a huge amount of complexity from it. Like I said..., a good sipping wine.

Price point:
$24-$29

Frankly, though I think this is a nice wine, it’s too short and not complex enough in my opinion to warrant that price tag. $15..., sure. $30...,nope. (We must have gotten this one through wine club or as a gift.) That being said, the label says, "For each bottle purchased, a donation is made to the Surfrider Foundation, a grassroots, non-profit, environmental organization that works to protect our oceans, waves, and beaches."

Hey wait, does that mean my wine tonight is tax deductible? ;)

2008 Carmen Carmenere

The facts:

2008 Carmen Carmenere
Region: Rapel Valley, Chile
Variety: 85% Carmenere, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon
Aging: Taken from www.carmen.com, "The bunches were crushed and cold macerated for 10 days at 3ºC to obtain colour and fruitiness. Alcoholic fermentation was made in stainless steel tanks between 26-28ºC. Malolactic fermentation occurred naturally in stainless steel tanks. 30% of the wine was aged in French and American oak barrels for a period of 6 months."

My take:

This wine had a red-black nose to me. I definitely got a sense of black pepper upon the first sniff or two. After opening up a bit, that black pepper transformed a bit to more of a green bell pepper.

Though I know we said we wouldn’t describe wine this way, it quite honestly made me think of strawberries, green bell pepper, and black pepper. It’s definitely on the spicy side, but not overbearingly so.

The texture was ever so slightly chewy and slightly dry. I’d call it full-bodied.

When all is said and done, I don’t really have too much to say about this wine. It isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either. We drank it before, during, and after having a steak dinner and it held up to marinated, grilled rib eye. But for me, that green pepper flavor didn’t seem to pair well with the steak. I liked the wine better without food. That being said, it’s not velvety enough for my tastes and I get no sense of the brown that I tend to prefer, so it’s not something I’d purchase again.

Price point: $12-$13

2006 Chateau Lamothe de Haux

The facts:

2006 Chateau Lamothe de Haux
Region: Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux, France
Variety: 60% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc


(Disclosure: I cheated and did not take a photograph of our wine bottle; I grabbed this image from the internet. Rest assured that the bottle we have is 2006, not 2005.)

My take:

I was excited to try this wine – I love a good Bordeaux blend and the color was beautiful – a nice red-brown. The nose was light, which seemed perfect to go with pork tenderloin. That’s as far as my optimistic notes are going to go.

I think I finally had what I would consider a full-bodied wine. This wine feels quite thick and viscous in the mouth. I personally didn’t care for the texture. The taste is very light up front, a bit more brown in the middle, and you get some complexity in the finish, if you pull a good amount of air over the wine. However, if you’re just sipping this wine, it’s completely nondescript. It’s very short, with little complexity or flavor. After the first glass and making some notes about it, I found myself completely uninterested in drinking more.

Don't get me wrong..., I didn’t dislike the wine, but I didn’t like it all that much either. I will say, drinking it with dinner did lengthen the wine somewhat, but I still found it thin in flavor (not texture). Luckily, dinner did not disappoint. For any food network aficionados, I made Paula Dean's apple stuffed pork tenderloin. Now that I can recommend. It was easy and delicious!

Price point:
Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps the Chateau Lamothe de Haux Blanc is better and/or more well-known than the Rouge. We got the red through our wine club and an internet search reveals lots of places selling the white, but I couldn’t find the red.

2006 Poggio del Falco - reviewed by Kerri

For this review, I have to start with the story, so I’ll end with the facts.

The other day, I wanted wine after work. So we opened a bottle of something (don't recall what it was and unless you want to know what not to drink, it doesn't matter) that smelled like really ripe blackberries. It didn’t taste like ripe blackberries; it tasted like jam – and not in a good way. At first, I thought, it’s okay; not my favorite, but I don’t hate it.

I tried some cheese (both manchego and a sharp cheddar) to see if that would make the wine any better. The cheese had no flavor compared to the wine! How is that possible? Seriously, how is it possible to make a sharp cheddar taste almost like nothing???

So, we poured it down the drain. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again… life’s too short to drink bad wine.

Then we opened the Italian Poggio del Falco.





OMG.... I hadn’t even taken a sip and I felt compelled to break out my laptop to start writing. The color is beautiful – that brownish red I’ve come to love. And the nose is so pleasantly sweet – like sweet tobacco. And not in a bad Marlboro kind of way (and that's not to disparage Marlboro - I've been known to smoke one here and there), but in a sweet, vanilla, pipe tobacco kind of way. And for some reason the nose reminds me of sweet alyssum, though I admit I haven’t actually smelled sweet alyssum in a couple of years.

After smelling the wine for I’d say a good 10 minutes (I could smell this wine forever), I finally took a taste. Ahhhhh, now that’s what a wine is supposed to taste like. And this is where I fall down in terms of reviewing the wine. After several tastes, I was still having trouble describing it. The only thing that kept coming to mind is that it tasted exactly like what wine should taste like! I realize that's not exactly helpful, so.... What I can say is this:

It tastes a little brown-red; definitely does not taste as sweet as it smells. The texture is that nice resting place between suck your mouth dry and coat your mouth with creaminess. It has a rather long finish. I’d call it medium bodied, though tasting notes online say it’s full bodied. I think the only thing that would make it better is if it were velvety in texture.

Important safety tip – be careful at the bottom of the bottle. There’s a fair amount of sediment and I’d venture to say you don’t want a mouthful of that.

Everyone should try this wine! Well, okay, everyone who is a fan of old-world style wines. If you prefer a full-bodied, in your face, fruit forward, hello I’m a huge wine party in your mouth kind of wine…, then this is not the wine for you.


So there's my story. Jonathan’s on vacation now and didn’t feel as compelled as I to write something up while we were drinking it, so this is a wine review - 1 way. But don’t misunderstand – he did enjoy the wine and I've already ordered 2 more bottles so he may post his take in the not too distant future. Personally, if I had the space for at least half a case, I’d order at least half a case. Maybe we need a bigger wine fridge. hmmm....

Now for the facts:

2006 Poggio del Falco
Region: Tuscany, Italy
Winemaker: Michele Barbiero of the Morazzano Estate (Turner Wine is the importer)
Variety: Sangiovese, Merlot & Cabernet Sauvignon (organic)

Price point: $15-$20