Finca Sandoval 2003:
I’m a little late to the party with this TN for a few reasons. I have been super busy and I am lazy. But I do want to say something snarky in the beginning- to those who don’t think this wine will age: you’re wrong. This is a wine that has, IMO, a long life ahead of it. Layered with graphite, mocha, shaved dark chocolate, smoked meat and scorched earth. There has been a dynamic change in this wine over the last two years. It is exotic now, though it was quite rambunctious in its youth. I expect this wine to continue to develop over the next five years and be excellent over another five to seven after that. (Two people out of four studying for the Master Sommelier Exam mistook this for Cornas if that matters to anyone when I poured it for them.) 92 points
Bodegas Alto Moncayo Aquilon 2005:
I opened this one night at 6PM and forgot about it while helping my wife with dinner. I didn’t drink it with dinner. After dinner I remembered that I opened it and went to check it out. It was around 845PM. I think the time alone did the wine good. The wine has an extremely perfumey nose- full of fresh flowers, berries and wet stones. On the palate there were brambly black raspberries aided by minerals and white chocolate. More flowers, this time violets creep in the background. Black plums dance around, dried cherries play here too and yes so does everyones’ friend the tree- there is some wood, some oak, in the form of sweet vanilla. I am sure the time the wine had alone was enough to shed a bit of wood and a bit of “heat” but this wine seems like it could use a long time to fully integrate. The next day the wine is even tastier, though there is little left to make many judgements. I liked it fine, but it was not out and out classic. I want to see where this is going. 91 points
Bodegas El Nido El Nido 2005:
This was opened with a number of other wines on my father’s 60th birthday. He had a really big party and we had a mess of different wines I will post on later. This one seemed to fit thematically with the others- because it was Spanish? Big, bold, flavors attack your palate- milk chocolate, lavender, wild blueberries, espresso. It is very rich and very inviting but, like a rich chocolate dessert, it may be a little much. I find this wine to be the hardest to drink of all of these three (though they have nothing really to do with each other) because it is so rich and dense right now. That being said it think it is well-crafted and will last a long time. No points off for ordering chocolate souffle when I should have ordered the apple tart! Right? 90 points