Mourvedre

Chateau de Trinquevedel Tavel 2021 Review – A Beautiful Rose

When studying for WSET Diploma, I leaned heavily on rose wine to fully understand how this wine style is made. One method, rose de saignee, was always rather interesting to me as a portion of red grape juice is bled off the skins during soaking. The bled off portion is made into rose wine, and the remaining wine continues maceration on the skins to extract more color and become a red wine.

Compared to other rose winemaking styles (blending and direct press, for example), rose de saignee is often darker style as a result. The intensity of the color is a dead giveaway in most cases, and one region in particular, Tavel in the Southern Rhone (one of our favorite regions), is historically known as a top producer of rose de saignee wine.

So when I stumbled upon a bottle of Chateau de Trinquevedel Tavel in the store, I knew I had to grab it to give a rose de saignee wine a try.

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Eleven Winery White Mourvedre 2020 Review – Unique Approach

Every so often you stumble upon a bottle that is surprising. Sometimes it is because of the flavor profile. Sometimes it is because of the price. Sometimes because it is, well, produced a little differently than you anticipated.

The white Mourvedre from Eleven Winery in Washington was most certainly the latter.

Why? They managed to produce this traditionally intense red grape as a nearly perfect white (with only slight, slight pink hints)!

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Rotie Cellars Southern Red 2019 Review – A Rhone Blend in Washington

It only took a while after arriving in Washington that we realize this state produces some pretty incredible grapes. Not only that, but Washington wineries tend to produce similar to two renowned Old World styles- namely Bordeaux and Rhone blends.

As we are fans of all things Rhone wine (less so Bordeaux, if we are being honest), we were drawn to sampling as much Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre as we could in Washington.

So when we were visiting Latta Vineyards outside of Seattle (after trying a bottle of their amazing Grenache), we found ourselves heading next door to Rotie Cellars immediately thereafter. As the name comes from one of the best wine regions in the Rhone (making arguably some of the finest Syrah in the world), we knew we had to give them a try.

As it turns out, their Southern Rhone Blend was a winner!

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Partida Creus Vinel-lo VN 2019 Review – A Delightful Blend

Partida Creus is an interesting winery in Catalunya, Spain, that is run by Italians and uses grapes acquired from old and sometimes abandoned vineyards. These are then farmed organically and produce some seriously delicious natural blends.

Vinel-lo, denoted VN, is a red field blend of six different grapes in various quantities- specifically Grenache, Mourvedre, Tempranillo, Sumoll, Trepat, and Cinsaut. As wines from Partida Creus have initials in a rather recognizable format on the label, it should be noted that they have VN bottles for red (this review), white, and even sparkling- so you may come across any of these if you are simply searching out “Partida Creus VN”.

So, what is the red blend like? Well, this one had a nice complex aroma and was relatively straightforward on the palate.

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Bodegas Olivares Panarroz 2011 Review – An Old Cellar Find

While we have a pretty good handle on everything that can be found in our cellar, sometimes we get a bit of surprise. In many cases, this is simply finding a bottle that we thought we had already consumed. Other times it is finding out a bottle does not contain the grapes we expected. In even rarer instances, we find that a bottle is much, much older than we had originally thought.

Our Bodegas Olivares Panarroz Jumilla (GSM blend- mostly Mourvedre) was the latter. We bought this one on an impulse because we saw it was on a clearance sale from a local wine store for $8. Instinctively I saw this and bought it without thinking much at the time because, well, it was $8. But it wasn't until we went to drink it that we realize this bottle was also nine-years-old.

A pleasant surprise indeed.

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