Brand: Abel Mendoza Seleccion Personal
Winery: Bodega Abel Mendoza
Vintage: 2006
Varietal: 100% Tempranillo
Winemaking: grapes are hand-picked from partially 100 years old vines (!) Cold pre-fermentation, alcoholic fermentation in cement vats, malolactic fermentation in new French oak barrels. Gravety flow instead of pumping, natural clarifying and filtering
Average Price: € 37
Tasting Notes: incredible balance between richness and elegance. Pure extract of fruit and minerality at the same time. The fruit is a cool dark one, and you literally taste the earth, stones, minerality, tobbacco …. With a long finish. Perfect to drink now…
Food Pairing Suggestions: game would probably be the best pairing. Like braised quail. Or try one of the best typical preparations of La Rioja Alavesa (the basque part of La Rioja): liver with some green vegetables like asparagus and a medium heavy sauce containing reduced dark beer.
General rating: 5 tastevins
Categories: Sit down bottle, authentic, Special occasion
Winery notes: After driving 1500k down to La Rioja with my boss on Wednesday night we were received at Abel and Maite Mendoza´s winery and I completely forgot how tired I was from the drive. I was immediately stunned by Maites warm receiving. After a short visit in the cellar where I was shown the cement vats and barrels we sat down in the kitchen with her and started off with their amazing Torrontes. This is a little special treat of theirs, and there are only very few bottles because Torrontes is not one of the varietals that are allowed to be planted in La Rioja. They keep a couple of vines off the record and believe me it´s worth every bit of it. This Torrontes has nothing to do with the Argentine Torrontes (Torrontes Riojano) by the way. When we finished the bottle Abel came down from his siesta and sat with us. We had their wonderful Malvasia, which actually was my first one of this kind (varietal), great and rich in character! Very lush, creamy with brilliant white fruit. The third bottle should be the Abel Mendoza Seleccion Personal 2006 which completely amazed us. We both decided to ignore the fact that one of us still had to keep on driving. The wine (as described above) is what you would pretty much describe as the perfect authentic wine, made by a true wine lover, a romantic, a stubborn, a rebel … and perfectionist who knows every single vine in the vineyard.