2007 Finca Sandoval Manchuela Spain

2 Hour decant. Mostly Syrah with some Monastrell and Bobal blended in. Deep purple with a clear rim. The nose showed lots of oak when first opened, but receded with the decant. This is a modern style, and very fruity, but thankfully not syrupy sweet. Nose shows blackberry, olive and mineral notes. Medium to full bodied. Dark brooding fruit on the mid palate. The finish brings on the tannins which dominate with plenty of grip. Pretty nice wine, but longs for beef or lamb.

Thanks for the positive words, Anthony. Give it six more months and the oak will be fully integrated and not a hindrance, if past performance serves. It’s still quite young, and 2007 is a good, slow-developing vintage in eastern Spain. But no, it’ll never be a wine for Dover sole… [grin.gif]

So Victor - tell us about that vintage in your area. Seems to be a mixed bag over Spain generally and the only consistently upbeat people were up in the northeast, where I’ve liked a lot of the whites. Rioja pretty much depends on who you talk to as to whether it’s up or down and how far and over on the eastern side I thought you guys had badly timed rain and again, depending on who you ask, it sucked or it wasn’t all that bad.

In Manchuela, Utiel-Requena and Valencia, and in large parts of Castile-La Mancha, this has been the best vintage since 2005. Cool year, late harvest: not that good for Atlantic Spain, but a boon for the much warmer Mediterranean Spain. (Not so good for Jumilla, Yecla or Alicante in the extreme southeast, where they did suffer from rain at harvest time.) This enabled us to make more complex, fresher wines. We launched a small batch of wine with longer aging that we hope to make only in great vintages, Finca Sandoval Tête de Cuvée (not yet released), and we haven’t made it in 2008 and 2009, and I am practically sure we won’t make it in 2010 either. (We finished harvesting syrah last Saturday, but we haven’t started yet with bobal, touriga nacional, garnacha, garnacha tintorera or monastrell.)

I’ve enjoyed a few bottles of the 2001 over the past year, and they were delicious. I am hanging on to my last one for at least a few years more. Nicely done. [winner.gif]

I have an o4 of this. Waiting for the right time.

Victor,

How was 2007 in Ribera, Priorat, and Rioja?

I still have a little 04 and 05. Last time I checked in on one or the other, I think last winter, it hadn’t really developed into anything very interesting yet (pretty monolithic black fruit and oak, though at least not oaky in the sweet sense), but it still had enough stuffing there that I had some hope it might get somewhere good eventually.

I remember liking the 03 a great deal in its first year or so after release; I’m not sure whether that reflects a different vintage, or how much my preferences have changed since that time.

Good, no more than that, in Rioja and Ribera, and very good, not great, in Priorat.

That said, the multiplication of producers, terroirs, viticultural practices and winemaking procedures has been such that these blanket definitions are increasingly meaningless.

2007 Priorat wines I’d call ‘great’: Terroir al Límit’s Les Tosses, Les Manyes and Dits del Terra, Clos del Portal’s Somni, Alvaro Palacios’ Finca Dofí, Daphne Glorian’s Clos Erasmus and Mas Alta’s Cirerets.

2007 Rioja wines I’d call ‘great’: Lacalle y Laorden’s Viña El Pisón, Contino’s Contino Blanco (white). (Of course, most top 2007 Rioja reds haven’t been released yet.)

2007 Ribera del Duero wines I’d call ‘great’ (same proviso as with Rioja): Pingus’ Flor de Pingus, Peñalba López’s Cyclo.

Checking my notes from the tasting we did with Victor back in May:

Color: Saturated purple, black in the glass

Nose: Black fruits, licorice, mint

Palate: Soft velvety black fruit, supple tannins, medium acidity

If I recall it was a little less than an hour in the decanter.

I’ve only had the 2005 and 2006 and enjoyed both a lot; the '06 seemed to me brighter and perhaps somewhat lighter, but I found both very satisfying wines, and neither seemed at all oaky (and I really don’t like residual oak.)

IMHO 2005 has been our best vintage yet, Frank, but it simply has not reached its peak yet. 2004 is nearing it, OTOH.

Victor,

You made a similar assessment about the 2005 elsewhere (in that other forum, some time ago), and after I read it I went out and bought more; I’ll emphasize, though, that the 2006 wasn’t at all a disappointment.

I was also interested to read, if I remember your remarks correctly, that even with your first wine, made in a new winemaking facility, you were able to ferment with indigenous yeast; interesting because some hold that it’s the yeast colony that develops in the winery over time, rather than whatever yeast come in on the grapes, that do the work in a native yeast fermentation.

Anyway, keep up the good work, and I hope you had a successful year.

So when selected yeasts didn’t exist in the market, what did you do in a new facility? Pray for a miracle? [wow.gif] No, actually you can do a ‘pied de cuve’, i.e. let a small amount of grapes start fermenting in a bucket, even in the world’s newest building. With it you inoculate your first vat (if need be - possibly it won’t even be needed!), and then you repeat with the following ones.

In 2001 we started both the syrah and the monastrell (we didn’t use bobal until 2003) with a ‘pied de cuve’, and it went quite smoothly.

Not intending to shill for CinderellaWine, but this is up until 9PM tonight so I popped one when I got home from work.

  • 2007 Finca Sandoval Manchuela - Spain, Castilla-La Mancha, Manchuela (12/5/2012)
    The cork on this bottle was completely soaked, but it opened with a pop and didn’t seem to affect the wine. The nose on this wine is very dark & complex- blackberry, red & black licorice, a bit of meat, leather & smoke. The flavors are quite meaty/smoky, along with red/dark fruit, a spicy midpalate and an oak-driven finish. My mouth is watering from the acidity, and the finish is medium+ with noticeable tannins. All that said, it is quite approachable now with a bit of air but should easily last 3-5 more years. (91 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

I had my last 2004 of this early this year, and it was the best showing I’ve had for any of these wines. The dense black fruit / oak profile had finally relaxed into a very interesting and balanced (if still definitely modern-styled) wine.

I just took a look, and the wine seems pretty available and at quite a bit lower price nowadays (a number of retailers at $20 or less). I may have to dive in again.