| Score: |
91 JG.
"The Selectión Especial from Abadia Retuerta is comprised of seventy-five percent tempranillo, twenty percent cabernet sauvignon and five percent merlot. The wine is quite dark in color and weighs in at fourteen percent alcohol, but retains a relatively refined profile on both the nose and palate. The classy bouquet is still fairly primary, but offers up a nice mélange of black cherries, cocoa powder, blood orange, a touch of espresso, lead pencil, violets and vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, suave and beautifully focused, with good mid-palate depth, a very elegant profile, modest fruit tannins, but a bit of oak tannins that make the wine a tad rigid today on the long and complex finish. Here the depth of fruit should have no difficulty absorbing the wood, but it will take a year or two, and the wine should be even more enjoyable to drink from 2010 out than it is today. This is a well-made and classy wine that could be even better with a bit less new wood- heard that one before? But I very much like the suave and elegant palate impression of this wine, despite the slightly exaggerated new oak. Good juice." John Gilman, View From the Cellar, Jul/Aug 2008, Issue #16 |