Monday 13 August 2018

Vino Tinto Arx 2016 14%, Bodega Tesalia

Appearance
very deep black-red with a cherry coloured rim and a faint trace of maturity starting to sneak in.
Nose
Big and ripe yet still fairly tight dominated by hefty Syrah notes of leathery black fruit, a suspicion of smoke and spice and a hint of pepper. Then there are toasty, lead pencil notes of French oak leaving the Petit Verdot and Tintilla to play a minor role but provide some freshness and elegance with some blueberry notes. It is still young and once all these aromas start to integrate it should be amazing.
Palate
Full bodied and well structured with notable spice and pepper notes then that leathery plummy ripe fruit appears with a smoky almost barbecue character, and the Andalusian heat really comes through. This is a very fine but rather masculine wine with plenty of tannin but at least it is good and ripe. It needs a couple of years to soften off a bit and a few more to reveal the finesse it surely has.
Comments
Made from a blend of Tintilla (35%), Syrah (50%) and Petit Verdot (15%) all hand harvested at night, this excellent wine comes from near Arcos de la Frontera. The plots where the vines are grown are all clay soils over chalk oriented north east and while they catch the hot Levante wind they are protected from the worst of its heat by the slopes of the vineyard, thus getting good ripening conditions. The grape bunches are carefully selected before a 4 day cold soak and the different grape varieties are fermented separately for two to three weeks. The wines are then blended to achieve the optimum character and aged in mostly French oak for a year. Production was 18,000 bottles. Arx is the estate's second wine after Tesalia. The wine's name and indeed the place it comes from derive from the Latin Arx (castle/fortress). This is the first commercial release of this wine which is produced at an estate belonging to the Golding family which has 11 hectares under vine.
Price
17.85 Licores Corredera

No comments:

Post a Comment