This one came as a last-minute surprise. Couple caveats to bear in mind. The bottle arrived late this afternoon on the hottest day of the year thus far. The temperature outside was 100 degrees with high humidity. The wine had clearly been riding around in these scalding temperatures for some time before arriving with us. Quite warm to the touch, we put it in the fridge to cool before uncorking.

Second, I have been fighting a high fever for the last several days and given the volume of ibuprofen and Tylenol flowing through my body, drinking wine is the last thing I need. Luckily, my awesome wife is a fan of Tempranillo and happily took this one on single handedly (other than a couple of very light tasting sips, of course).

P&P, the cork had a distinct musty and earthy aroma. In the glass it has a nice ruby color, but not a lot on the nose. The most notable was tobacco and dusty aromas. The initial tasting revealed a quite thin and sharp mouthfeel, which somewhat overwhelmed flavors of cherries, tobacco and leather. The combination of these deep, earthy flavors contrasted sharply with the mouthfeel of the wine, making the initial tasting somewhat confusing. Realizing this could be because bottle-shock and high heat exposure, we decided to table the wine for the night to let it breathe and relax.

Will update this post tomorrow.

No IL! Devastating!

From Wine Enthusiast:

Actually nothing. Well nothing I can find. There is a 91 point review for the 2012, but this is 2013.

fwiw

70 cases! Awesome. Hopefully a winery rep jumps on board with pH, TA, RS, percent new oak, etc. Also, the labrat report made me pause…

Greetings from Irwin Family. This wine will drink fantastic for the next couple of years. We believe fruit is very important in the wine but we like the wines to be not heavy handed.

Here is one of our favorite paella recipes a perfect match to our Tempranillo

My favorite version is using wild game but the one I make the most for family and friends consists of chicken thighs, pork sausage, shrimp and mussels. I cut the chicken and sausage into bite size pieces, season them with salt and pepper and then fry them in olive oil. Important here that the oil is really hot….almost to the smoking point. After browning the meat, I usually add tomatoes, garlic, green beans and peas and cook for about 5 more minutes, turning it off for the last minute. At this point, a high quality paprika is thrown in and mixed in. After putting the pan back on the fire, medium heat, I put in my rice. Here again I am a little different in that I do not require a specific paella rice, although nice, not a necessity. Most short-grained rice, like the widely available Arborio rice, works just fine. After sautéing the rice a little, waiting for it to absorb all the oil and flavors, I deglaze the pan with a little white wine or a lighter bodied Spanish red. Once finished with the deglazing, I start adding the warm stock, little by little. I stir in the stock and once about half in I add my shrimp and mussels and try to cover with the rice. After the remaining stock is added I stop stirring and allow for a nice crust to form on the bottom of the pan……secret here is the best part and the mark of a properly made paella. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool for about 10 minutes. Just before serving throw on some sliced lemons and parsley. Buen provecho!

Generally for 4 guests its a cup of Rice, 2qts of stock, 2 chicken thighs, 2 sausages about a half pound of each shrimp and mussels. Remember if Mussels don’t open up in cooking process discard them. A half cup of each vegetable is about right. For larger groups just double ingredients. If you really want to take it up a notch purchase a paella pan.

We use about a 1/3 new wood in the Tempranillo. I don’t have the TA and PH at my finger tips but have a message out to Derek who’s out in the vineyards today. The wine has no RS fermented totally dry.

Can you hold a case until the fall to ship when temperatures cool down? It’s just to hot to ship to the Midwest in the summers.

Sorry for the late report, but with social distancing and working from home for the last few months, the wine was delivered to work earlier in the week and I was not able to pick it up until this morning.

I opened up the wine after I got home at around 9am and decided to give it a whirl an hour later. The wine appears ruby in color with nice legs after some swirling around in the glass. On the nose, I caught hints of sour cherries and leather. It tasted a lot lighter than expected, fruity with good acidity and light to medium tannins, but fades fairly quickly. A great daily drinker.

Good afternoon all, I work closely with Derek managing sales. We work on the blend together for some of our other wines. This Tempranillo was produced prior to my working with Derek which was back in 2017. What I like about working with Derek is that he brings an old world winemaking style to California.

Can you schedule shipping a day earlier than you have scheduled, I just got my order notification, & it’s for July 2nd thru 6, I.e. if it doesn’t get delivered by Friday the 3rd, it sits at UPS over the 4th holiday in JULY. Just a better chance to not have it sitting at UPS