Bodegas Mauro

Bodegas Mauro, Vendimia Seleccionada 2003

A busy year is coming to an end. I could write about how busy it was, but the very slow trickle of posts on the Wine Rambler makes that obvious enough. Instead I feel like leaning back, pouring myself a comforting wine and relax. A wine with substance and soothing qualities, something with a personal connection but less intellectual challenge than the Rieslings I love so much. It is time to open a special red wine that had been sitting in my cellar waiting for a moment like this. Or maybe his is just a pretentious way of saying: after maybe five years stored in a wardrobe I feared the Mauro really needed drinking.

Bodegas Mauro, Vendimia Seleccionada, 2000

I have been a fan of the Mauro wines since my dad casually handed me a bottle several years ago, remarking that I may like this. Well, he was right. Every other year since I had one of those Spanish beauties, and the most recent one we enjoyed at a Wine Rambler meeting in Munich.

Our regular readers may have noticed that Julian is more likely than me to go for the more substantial red wines, but the beautiful and deep Tempranillos from Mauro are just too pleasing to ignore.

Bodegas Mauro, Mauro, 2004

Incredibly intense dark red colour, almost bordering on black. A nose full of fruit that, after a little time with our friend the decanter, opened up to combine redcurrant, cherry, plum, woodland herbs, leather, manure (just a hint) and oak - the latter is already very pleasantly integrated.

In the mouth it is intense yet smooth, a little spicy oak, mellow fruit, grainy tannins (quite enjoyable) - it is strong but you don't notice (in the sense of taste) the alcohol at all.

It felt as if this wine would gain from a few more years in the bottle, but it is already quite a presence!