TN: Rarer than Romanee Conti and certainly more obscure

One of the upsides of the closed borders is that we are receiving lots of visitors from South Australia’s other wine regions, and thus being exposed to a wider cross-section of local offerings. Tom Keelan and Bec Willson dropped in and left a bottle of this beauty for me to try.
The variety is Maturana Tinta which Tom tells me is a near extinct variety indigenous to Rioja. He has a small block in Macclesfield in the Adelaide Hills and he suggests that it is the only wine made with the variety outside Spain.
This wine has a lot going for it, despite the near non PC brand name!

2018 The Pawn Wine Co. Maturana Tinta
Savoury, spicy and fragrant. Good density of colour, bright and glowing in teh glass. The palate is juicy and svelte, not dissimilar is weight and texture to Tempranillo. Tannins are gossamer like and length of flavour is excellent. Satisfying savoury imprint at the finish. Young but quite approachable now. Really lovely, and a curio that delivers in spades.

Great (if a little misleading) thread title writing skills.

Yes, inspired by Twitter click bait.
Good wine though!

LOL
The second best wine I have had in my life…Number 1 will amaze you

You won’t believe what happens next!..

To my understanding, DNA profiling has proven Maturana Tinta to be identical to Trousseau / Bastardo. Rioja consejo regulador and many producers still claim it is a rare indigenous variety, but it is quite hard to fight the science here.

I must admit that in Rioja the clonal differences and very old, low-yielding vines tend to produce wines that are noticeably darker, more concentrated and tannic compared to a typical Trousseau, which is why the similarities aren’t that obvious. However, your description sounds like a good match for a Trousseau/Bastardo.

Bastardo was made from crossing two varieties which were not married, FYI.

At first I was [scratch.gif] but then I was [snort.gif] [rofl.gif]

Took me a minute as well. Funny stuff Chris!

Great information Otto. I don’t recall trying a Trousseau, but this wine showed good density without being overly tannic. Chris, too funny!