2005 Bodega Numanthia Termes Toro Numanthia- Spain, Castilla y León, Toro (9/10/2010)
What is it about Spanish wines that makes me taste high end XO congnac? The flavor profile here was red fruit, some earthy spice and the aroma and sweet taste of Hennesy XO cognac. I experienced the same thing before, with Moncayo’s Aquilon, but that is a Grenache and this is a Tempranillo. Dark in color, strong smooth red fruit nose, a flavorful but not unctious mouth feel and a long finish. Five years have served this wine very well. The tanins are loosening up and the wine is approachable now. This was just right after a 4 hour decant. An outstanding wine.(92 pts.)
thanks for this note, Jay. we have three of these in our cellar, and i just haven’t been able to bring myself to pop one yet — sounds like time for the first one might have finally arrived.
I bought 4 earlier this year from Posner. I knew there was a risk that it was too tight, but I figured a nice decant would do it and it worked fine. I intend to stretch out the remainder over the next few years. I’ve got some Termanthia but when I bought them I promised myself that I would not open them until at least 10 years out, so I’ve got a few more years to wait.
2005 Bodega Numanthia Termes Toro Numanthia- Spain, Castilla y León, Toro (12/6/2010)
– popped and poured –
– tasted non-blind over two hours immediately after uncorking, then again on Day 3 (approx. 48 hours after uncorking) –
NOSE: Day 1: oak; pepper; earthy; purple fruits. Day 3: slightly funky; tight; dark non-descript fruits; oak.
BODY: black-purple color of great depth; medium-full to full bodied; fine particulate matter present.
TASTE: Day 1: oaky; black licorice; earthy, but not funky; dark fruits; sweet oak; coffee grounds; loads of coarse/grippy/drying tannin, but there seems to be deeply-embedded acidity holding it up ---- still on the tannic side of well-balanced (between acid and tannin) for now; 14.5% alc. is not noticeable; I think this will greatly benefit from more cellar time. Day 3: minerally; dark purple fruits; some oak; leather; earthy; smoke; I think this is more complex that what is readily apparent today; tannin is still coarse/grippy/drying; alcohol is still not noticeable. Needs time.
I recently sampled the 2007 Numanthia and thought it was the best vintage yet - and oddly enough I opened it on a Sunday night, we drank 3/4 btl, put the cork back in and when we tried it again on Thursday it tasted EXACTLY the same…
Matt - it pretty much always tastes exactly the same. I don’t know why one would save it - not sure what it will turn into since it’s a big, sloppy, wet kiss right now. Where does that go? Does it suddenly become a Pygmalion type wine? Not hardly. I’ve seen no development over nearly 10 years for the 2001.
I actually don’t mind that wine but it’s of a type - big, buttery, alcoholic, oaky. Sometimes it’s actually better than the Termanthia and always way better than the Termes, which is a really weak wine IMO. The 2005 was a great year in the area but the 2006 is somehow better to me, perhaps because it’s a bit more restrained, and the 2007 isn’t bad either.
I agree the cognac notes are probably from the oak. They spend a lot of money on the barrels and want you to know it! What I don’t know is whether the more recent “restraint” is due to the vintages or because it’s no longer made for Ordonez.
However, the new Eguren project is putting out great wines too, so Jay - if you like this, you may like those too. Don’t know if they’ve been rated yet but figure the favorite importer for the WA and some of their favorite native Spanish winemakers and you gotta figure 96 - 120. Regardless, the new wine’s pretty good, but again, it’s not subtle.
The Egurens were already building a new winery and acquiring old and not-so-old vineyards while negotiating the sale of Numanthia to LVMH in 2007. When the sale of the relatively modest-sized estate (a smallish winery and 49 hectares of vineyards) was completed for a rather whopping 26.2 million euros, they already had their new operation, Teso La Monja, up and running. For a fraction of that sum, of course. Then again, what they were selling was a brand with a 100-point Parker wine.
To make things even more painful, the Egurens are producing three wines again, in the same price ranges as Termes, Numanthia and Termanthia: respectively, Almirez, Victorino and Alabaster. (Actually, Termanthia is somewhat more expensive than Alabaster - but of course Alabaster doesn’t have the ratings yet!)
We recently tasted (blind, as usual) current Toro wines at elmundovino, including these six wines:
Our conclusion from the 2008 wines was that Termes and Termanthis were slightly better than Almirez and Alabaster, while Victorino was slightly better than Numanthia. But they’re closely bunched in style and merit, all of them good in their respective price ranges. Yet the Toro wine we preferred overall was the elegant, complex, less overpowering Pintia 2008, owned by Vega Sicilia. In Spain, you can buy five bottles of Pintia for the price of one bottle of Termanthia.
The 2006 edition of San Román, which we rated the equivalent of 90 WA points, was good but not as good as the two preceding vintages. In the first of our two tastings, it was outperformed by the 2007 El Titán del Bendito, a very interesting, elegant wine from Dominio del Bendito, a tiny estate run by a young Frenchman, Antony Terryn. Then, in the second tasting, several wines including the Pintia, Termanthia, Alabaster, Victorino and Numanthia, plus Bernard Magrez’s 2006 Paciencia and the outstanding 2007 Pago La Jara by Telmo Rodríguez also outpaced the San Román.
Obviously, it’s Alabaster, in the Eguren stable, which will be the strongest candidate to the 100 points. My question is: Is it really interesting for a Spanish wine, at this point in time, to get the ‘perfect’ rating?
2005 Bodega Numanthia Toro Numanthia- Spain, Castilla y León, Toro (10/31/2019)
– decanted approximately 45 minutes before initial taste –
– tasted non-blind over 2- 3 hours –
NOSE: concentrated purple fruits; a bit smoky; oaky; moderately fumey (alc.); medium+ expressiveness.
BODY: violet – blood red color of great depth; no bricking; sediment present; full bodied.
TASTE: oaky; alcohol stands out (labelled at 14.5%, but it seems higher); deep, buried, dark red berries; a “big” wine that seems to be fairly extracted; from un-grafted vines of 70 to 100 years of age, but it all seems wasted by the heavy-handed winemaking; medium-low to medium acidity; barely any tannins left; hot; anonymous. Probably a coin flip as to whether more age will do this any good. Won’t be buying again. I liked this less than my score suggests.
It was a big vintage and their wine making trended big so . . .
Good news is that they’ve dialed back a little bit. Both the new owners and the Egurens at their new bodega. You don’t need to push things in Toro and people have figured that out, so the wines are better than ever.
I don’t know about now, but the oak guess is spot on. Same maker back then.
But I suspect the Cognac guess may have something to do with the alcohol level.
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