Tag: mauro

Y MAS FROM A VEGA ALUM

As long as we touched on the exciting new stuff from Vega Sicilia, it seemed appropriate to mention something else new and very exciting that came across the table with a Vega connection.  We’ll defer to a piece from Luis Gutierrez that succinctly  serves as a good opening statement. “One of the most anticipated projects in Ribera del Duero is the one from the García family of Mauro fame. Of course, Mariano is a partner in Aalto, so he has produced a few wines from Ribera del Duero before, not to mention his 30 years at Vega Sicilia from 1968 to 1998. Garmón is the contraction of the surnames of Mariano’s sons, Alberto and Eduardo, García Montaña.”

This is Mariano’s first project of his own within the actual boundaries of the Ribera (Mauro is labeled with the broader appellation Tierra de Castillo y Leon).  He apparently opened this project with the 2014 vintage bust this  Garmon Ribera del Duero 2016 is the first we have tasted of the series and it impressed on first sip and really showed its stuff as another bottled was ‘researched’ over the course of an evening.  Like the Mauro wines, this has remarkably polished texture and is seamless from front to back with a glossy palate feel and tight but ripe and refined tannins.  Since this is our first go-round, we aren’t sure how much to attribute to the vintage itself, but it is a pretty sensational effort.

Classic Ribera flavors of dark cherry, plum, cocoa and earth, with a little balsamic, this is a modern style that can hold its own with top flight Bordeaux.  Apparently with this vintage they dialed back the new oak to 50% and the vintage itself has the same lift, poise, and freshness that has been a recurring comment for a variety of examples of the vintage from France and Italy as well.  Luis’ notes below are making comparisons.  It is from 100% Tinto Fino (the local clone of Tempranillo) from a variety  of parcels in Valladolid and vines ranging from 30 to 100 years of age from vineyards at nearly 3000 feet elevation.

The Wine Advocate notes,“Cropped from a cooler year, the 2016 Garmón is fresher, cooler and juicier, with elegant and polished tannins (compared to the 2015 tasted the same day). The process is similar every year, and the differences are mostly due to vintage variations, but in this vintage, they used a higher percentage of used barriques for the élevage (50/50 new and used). 2016 is fresher, more elegant and a little lighter. It has a medium to full body and some grainy tannins. Give it a little more time before you pull the cork…93 points.”

The tasting note was from August, 2018.  A ‘little more time’ has passed and a lot can happen in a year and a half. It wouldn’t surprise us if this wine was a little more closed back then only two months after bottling.  We had no trouble ‘pulling the cork’ presently, though it did expand in the glass a bit and will age a long time should one choose.  In the here and now, we’d be a point or two higher than Luis if we did that sort of scoring thing ourselves.  This is serious juice.

Mauro’s Very Special V.S.

As has been obvious over the years, we are huge fans of Spanish wines.  We love the dusty plum fruit of an old Rioja and the opulence of an old vine Garnacha that tastes like a new twist on Chateauneuf.  But we also understand that these are unique flavor profiles that might take a little getting used to for someone accustomed to the straightforward, in-your-face blast of fruit from a top flight Napa Cabernet.  Well here we are going to present an immensely impressive wine that not only will pander to the hedonists who like a lot of engaging flavor up front, and purists who don’t mind modern styling provided the wine still has the trappings of classic Spanish reds, but save folks money who think you have to pay $150+ to get something truly special.

Mariano Garcia, winemaker at Vega Sicilia for about a couple of decades, is the force behind Bodegas Mauro.  This is an exceptional performer in the somewhat less defined Tierra de Castillo y Leon, sort of the outskirts of Ribera del Duero.  His ‘regular’ bottling were one of the eye opening efforts that really got us into Spanish wines back in the early 90s, and some of his reserve bottlings have been epic for their genre in the same way that certain producers have become iconic for Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Napa Valley.

This particular wine is a ‘modern’ reserve, meaning that the eye here is on making the best wine possible while no being confined to the guidelines of traditional nomenclature which carry certain rules that winemakers might find a little confining.  This wine is not made every year and comes mainly from two plots of older vineyards.  The wine was bottled in March, 2017 after spending 26 months in a combination of French and American oak.

The scents of smoke, vanilla, and chocolate harmonize beautifully with the classic cassis and plum fruit character of this 100% Tempranillo.  The entry is cool and authoritative with the intensity and dimension of the oak fused with the sleek, polished palate.  This is on par with any Classified Growth Bordeaux and we’d make the comparison with a ‘trophy’ Napa Cabernet except that the Mauro Tierra de Castillo y Leon V.S. 2014 is more harmonious and refined than most New World reds we can think of.  Packed with flavor, this plays on many levels.  You can delve into the wine’s sweet and savory complexity for an engaging intellectual exercise, or you can just sit back and let the intense, layered, toasty, chocolaty flavors roll across the palate.

This is very serious wine that, while it is true to its genre, doesn’t expect you to cross the line to appreciate the context.  There’s plenty of well-heeled but intense flavor to make quite an impression.  Yeah, 2014 was a problematic vintage in some parts of Europe.  But clearly not in the Ribera/Castillo y Leon or a wine of this magnitude would not have been possible.  This to us is that ‘crossover wine’ that will give Bordeaux and Cabernet drinkers a whole new perspective.  Killer juice here, this wine just arrived and, while this has not been reviewed, this series has averaged 95 in Wine Advocate over the last several vintages.  This is definitely one of the best versions of the V.S..