The 2011 Alabaster is produced with the fruit of over 100-year-old Tempranillo vineyards that were hand-destemmed and fermented in open vats with soft remontage and pigeage. The wine aged for 18 months in brand new French oak barrels. It has a dark profile with notes of peat, graphite, smoke and dark berries with a lactic hint lurking from the background. It’s subtler and more closed than the 2011 Victorino, equally full-bodied and ripe, with more noticeable tannins and a slightly warm finish. A big, ripe Toro, true to its birthplace that might need one more year in bottle to show better integration. This might be more powerful than the Victorino, but is it better? Perhaps in the long term. Only 4,000 bottles were produced. Drink 2015-2021. Teso la Monja is the Toro winery created by the Eguren family from Rioja. The wines are powerful and concentrated, but show balance and no excesses, in a style that is quite different from what they used to produce at Numanthia. The oak is imperceptible despite the long aging and the use of 100% new French oak, a treatment that very few grapes on earth can take. The Teso la Monja project started before they sold Numanthia and what they were looking for were wines that didn’t show any hard tannins, which had acidity. For that they started looking for vineyards that had a longer vegetative cycle, deeper soils with big boulders and usually north-east facing, cooler sites where they get west winds and are specially protected from the south winds. The result is that the vegetative cycle in these vineyards is longer, the ripening is slower and the grapes do not accumulate excessive alcohol/sugar and the tannins are also finer. The big boulders on the surface help to regulate the heat and make the thermal differences less abrupt, resulting in more freshness and acidity. All the grapes are fermented in open vats, mostly foot-trodden, as the aim is not too overextracted, to have a gentle vinification without extracting anything from the seeds. I found the wines, as it happened with their wines from Rioja, balanced and true to their origin, powerful, with superbly integrated oak and soft tannins, without showing the heat from warm, ripe vintages like 2011. I tasted the 2007s and the 2008 from Teso la Monja, the first vintages for each of the wines, and they have not budged an inch. These are powerful wines that require powerful food and should age for years in bottle as they have superb grapes and show very good balance, of course within the style of ripe, powerful and concentrated wines from the region. Marcos Eguren thinks 2011 is quite similar (even better!) to 2010 in Toro. Imported by Jorge Ordonez, Fine Estates from Spain, Dedham, MA; tel. (781) 461-5767

This modern-style red shows impressive concentration, yet remains balanced, delivering mouthfilling flavors of black currant, licorice, black olive and espresso. The firm tannins are well-integrated, giving way to the fresh, savory finish. Harmonious and complete. Best from 2016 through 2030. 120 cases made, 100 cases imported.??–TM??Region: Spain / Toro Select to Add