2007 Volver Tempranillo (83 Points)

DATE CONSUMED

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

VINTAGE

N.V.

WINERY/PRODUCER

Volver

WINE NAME

N/A

TYPE OF WINE

Red

COMPOSITION

100% Tempranillo

SUBNAME/NICKNAME

N/A

VINEYARD DESIGNATION

N/A

REGION/A.V.A.

La Mancha

ALCOHOL CONTENT

14.5%

PRICE PAID

$13

WHERE/WHEN BOUGHT AND/OR HOW PROCURED

Bought this bottle at Hi-Time in Costa Mesa, California about a year ago (Hi-Time is a FANTASTIC wine shop, with a selection that BevMo and Total Wine & More could only dream of duplicating).

BOUQUET

This isn’t a terribly aromatic wine.  We pretty much popped-and-poured (and swirled like crazy, of course), so if you have this wine at home, I would suggest decanting for at least an hour.  That said, there was some spice on the nose (black pepper), along with some red/black fruit.

TASTING NOTES

I had very high expectations for this wine.  We absolutely fell in love with another Spanish Tempranillo that we discovered on our first visit to New York City years ago (Pago Florentino, also from La Mancha).  The Pago Florentino isn’t easy to find (Hi-Time, of course, carries it) and about a year or two ago I read a glowing review of the Volver, so on a visit to Hi-Time we decided to give this bottle a try.

Sadly, this wine doesn’t compare to the Pago Florentino, which is very disappointing.  I generally don’t fault/blame a wine for not meeting my expectations or measuring-up to another wine, but since the review I read was so positive and Hi-Time isn’t exactly around the corner, it was a bit of a let-down that this wine didn’t at least approach the quality of the Pago.

 If I didn’t know this wine was a Tempranillo, I would have guessed that this was a Spanish Syrah, which isn’t a bad thing.  There’s plenty of that Syrah-esque spice (especially black pepper) and an abundance of black and red fruit like plums, blackberries, and raspberries.  Unfortunately, that’s about it!  The wine is a bit flat/shallow, a bit tannic and acidic, and the flavors only go a few inches deep below the surface, whereas the Pago’s flavor profile goes MILES deep.  Perhaps this wine needs a few more years of bottle aging and an hour or more of decanting. 

This isn’t a bad wine by any stretch of the imagination.  Perhaps a bit unfairly, I just expected much more.  And it doesn’t help matters any that I have incredibly fond memories of my beloved Pago Florentino.  I think I’ll buy another bottle of this (perhaps the 2008 vintage has been released), let it cellar for a few years, and then decant for an hour or two.  We’ll see how that goes in 2015 or so.

PAIRING SUGGESTIONS

We served this wine with racks of lamb spiced with Kosher salt, freshly-cracked black pepper, and chopped rosemary.  The wine paired very well with the lamb and would pretty much go well with just about any red meat dish, as well as (I would assume) Spanish tapas.  

AGING POTENTIAL

See above.  It’s possible this wine needs several more years of cellaring and based on its structure this wine will probably age well for another 10 to 15 years.

SCORE

83

Q.P.R. (QUALITY-TO-PRICE RATIO) (POOR, FAIR, GOOD, EXCELLENT)

FAIR

WINERY WEBSITE

Unknown