Can’t believe I forgot Villa Creek. Their Mas de Maha is awesome.
I also really like the “Tinto” blend made by Trenza.
Mas de Maha is a good wine. The Curran Tempranillo is solid (as are all her wines under that label).
I had a Tempranillo from Germany a few months ago, and it was pretty good. Herrenberg Honigsackel Tempranillo Trocken Pfalz 2008. It tasted like a traditional-style Rioja.
More and more Spanish producers are moving to French barrels. Won’t happen with the old school/Gran Reserva Riojas, but not many of those are at $40. I wonder how many Washington producers are going to start doing them after the Cayuse 100 points this year?
I am also a fan of Villa Creeks Mas de Maha. Pretty subdued and restrained for Paso.
+1 sipping an 08 Kerloo right now,splendid!Ryan is certainly somebody to watch, well priced and high quality stuff
Another label: DARE (Viader’s second label). Only problem is that it’s ~$40. For that price, I bought a bottle of 2002 Flor de Pingus off of winebid.
Somewhat related: I see the same problem with Malbec (at least in Napa). Why pay someone like James Cole or Hope & Grace $60-75 when you can get much better QPR from an grower whose sole focus is on Malbec in another country.
Curiosity about different treatments of the grape. I’ve had the gramercy once and it was a very nice wine. The key is not to expect Rioja but from here… the vineyards, viticulture and winemaking are different. If one wants Rioja, buy Rioja. If one’s fascinated by the the grape and wants to see what it does in different places, try some of the above.
Overall I agree, Rick. I do want to see how US versions are different than Rioja or Ribera del Duero and I would expect the US versions to be as different from the Spanish ones as Napa is from Bordeaux. But unless they’re knock your socks off type of wines, in the long run I’ll still buy more Spanish versions because they may be a better value (I buy a lot of $10 tempranillo for everyday drinking form various parts of Spain). But I am looking to understand the differences between the US and the Spanish ones and I do want to branch out my tastes. And as I said, I now have a lot of good suggestions to get me pointed in the right direction. Cheers.
IMHO, Ribera del Duero does the “American style” better than Americans do. Put another way, Americans do the RdD style worse than the Spaniards do.
[quote=“Brian G r a f s t r o m”
IMHO, Ribera del Duero does the “American style” better than Americans do. Put another way, Americans do the RdD style worse than the Spaniards do.[/quote]
Interesting idea. I’m a huge Pesquera fan as well as Teofilo Reyes, and while they use American oak, I’ve never really thought of them as “American style.” I’ve always just thought of them as RdD. Now I need to go open one and think about it.
just my opinion, thas all. 
The 2008 Epoch Tempranillo was delicious. dark and rich with lots of everything. Big and bold fruit.
I did drink it out of Govino plastic cups, however.
My note:
Dark, rich color with a nose that matches the color. Rich black fruits with a touch of chocolate. The wine is concentrated, showing layers of good fruit and earth. Has a port like finish with its sweetness, either from the ripe fruit or residual sugar. Does not show heat, though, even at the stated 15.9% level. Quite tasty.
Thanks for sharing this. I did not know about this winery and the history behind it…Cheers, Gary
I have tried a few, including cayuse, gramercy, and some others… They can be fine wines, but i would so much rather spend my money on muga, Lopez de heredia, or even Lan. I have yet to find one to offer an expression of tempranillo that is compelling or interesting compared to rioja.
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Rachel - we just did a tasting of American Tempranillo last month in my tasting group. Since half the members are in the Spanish wine business, we had to throw in a couple Spanish wines as well, just as references, so they threw in Celeste from Torres, which is a fairly inexpensive but straightforward and decent wine made from grapes sourced from various points in Ribera del Duero, and Numanthia, which is a bigger, riper style from Toro. No point putting in an old Rioja Gran Reserva, as that was not going to teach anything. The idea was to see how the wines differed from what we were used to from Spain, and since Ribera and Toro are “newer” regions, they seemed appropriate.
The group’s favorite wine was from Reverie in Calistoga. It was quite good actually. The next was Berryessa Gap Rocky Ridge, also from CA. I also liked the Abacela from Oregon. My personal favorite by a mile was from Booker Vineyards in CA - that was pretty tannic and needed some time, but was very promising. All of those were very good examples of well-done Tempranillo and I was happy to find out what they were when we uncovered them. The most disappointing to me was Salt Lick Vineyards from Fall Creek in Texas, which I found to be a mess. OTOH, one of the people felt it was the best of the lot. I felt similarly about Sancha by Caduceus in Arizona. I haven’t yet had much wine from Arizona that thrills me, although it seems like they should be able to do it in the mountains.
Right in the middle of the pack, not particularly bad but not particularly remarkable, were Gramercy’s Inigo Montoya and Impulsivo from Cayuse. As the Cayuse is pretty expensive, I was curious as to how critics had scored it. As luck would have it, one critic covers both Spain and Washington, so I looked for his insights. He said this about the wine: “Over the past 6 years, because of my coverage of Spain for this journal, I have gotten to know Tempranillo very well. My principal observation is that it does not travel particularly well…There is one exception, Christophe Baron’s small parcel of estate-grown Tempranillo.”
Not sure where he got the idea that it doesn’t travel very well but whatever. I utterly disagree. Of course, it might make a difference if he tasted blind. For our tastings, if the wine is in a distinctive bottle, we pour it into a standard Bordeaux-shaped bottle. They’re all bagged and all poured at once - each taster has 12 glasses so you can go back and forth and compare everything to everything else. Anyway, I’m glad he’s getting to know Tempranillo.
BTW - I’m not sure why Tempranillo would be considered a particularly warm weather grape. It’s actually kind of cold where the best is grown. Garnacha and Monastrell are more likely to do well in warm places. I’m thinking that Washington and perhaps even Idaho would be good places for Tempranillo - parts of Washington seem very similar to Ribera del Duero.
Anyhow, as Rick said, the key is not to denigrate it because it differs from the wine from somewhere else. Same with every grape really - it’s kind of sad to dismiss Cab or Garnacha or Nebbiolo or Pinot Noir from California or New York or the US because the wine is different from wine made from the same grapes in Spain or France or Italy. I would fervently hope that a wine made on one continent isn’t identical to a wine from another. It’s why I don’t like the idea of “typicity”, which to me is a measure of how closely a wine conforms to the prejudice of the taster. I think it’s far more interesting to see how the grape differs in different regions and it’s cool that you’re looking.
If I’m contemplating spending $45 on a wine, I’m not going to say to myself that I shouldn’t buy a Tempranillo from the US because I can get a completely different style from Spain, or I shouldn’t buy a Pinot Noir from the US because I can get a completely different style from France, or so on. I’m only interested in whether the wine is worth $45 on its own. Of these, I’d be curious to see them with a few years on. Cheers.
Greg,
I enjoy this thought. I am a proponent of “typicity,” but take what you say here to heart. In fact, I’m ready to whole-heartedly jump on your ship on this matter if you can resolve my confusion regarding one particular point.
That point is this: what do I make of a region where its Pinot Noir, Syrah, Tempranillo, Grenache, Mourvedre, and Cabernet Sauvignon all taste very similarly? I’ve always assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that this homogenization was more a result of the winemakers than the region itself, but perhaps that’s not correct? IMO, a variety from one region should not taste like another variety from the same region, unless that’s what that region’s terroir naturally offers. (I’d like to think that) Certainly, any given region doesn’t produce various varietal bottlings that taste so similar it becomes difficult to tell them apart.
Your thoughts?
I’d add that a grape should show some of its identity to be worth buying. That is, it doesn’t matter whether a temperanillo from Cali tastes like one from Spain, but it shouldn’t taste like generic red international style wine. Some grapes don’t seem to travel well - they make decent wine in other places but they don’t seem distinctive. This is tricky to evaluate, but what you’re looking for is a similarity between that grape made by several producers in a region AND a difference between that group of wines and wines made from other varieties. If the grape isn’t distinctive, it’s probably not a good place to grow it (or winemakers need to learn how to handle it). If it doesn’t show some varietal identity, same thing. But that doesn’t at all mean that the wines should taste like that grape made elsewhere.
Cris Cherry really introduced me to the variety. I’ve never been disappointed by Mas de Maha.
Yup. This is how I feel.
aside:
While we’re on the topic of Tempranillo; if you want to absolutely soil yourself from amazement, find yourself a bottle of the 1978 Marques de Murrieta Ygay Gran Reserva. Sure sure, it is only 75% Tempranillo, but still … ![[swoon.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f425e8dac3e7344bee264da02e55428971be23a9.gif "swoon"){kind=small}
