La Montesa, a great little wine miracle

How many times, during our enoic evenings, it happens to exclaim, after having tasted a wine: “it will be good, but not worth the price it costs”.

It often happens, also because, in many cases, the dynamics that lead to the determination of the price of a bottle are much broader and more varied than the simple quality of the liquid it contains (on this subject I wrote an article some time ago, ed ...).

Far rarer, however, is the opposite thought, which does not happen to be done for wines that simply are featured by excellent quality/ rice ratio, but only for those labels that leave us the impression of being worth more than what they cost.

However, I had an emblematic example in this sense a few nights ago, in front of the Rioja Crianza "La Montesa" 2017.

A wine made by the skilled hands of Alvaro Palacios, one of the winemakers who better than any other represents the "new Spain of wine", able to giving life to a style that is a perfect combination of modernity but at the same time adherence to the characters of territory and tradition.

And "La Montesa" is undoubtedly one of the flagships of its vast production, a label known among enthusiasts but also and above all by insiders, given that this year it was evaluated with 92/100 by Robert Parker, the famous American guru with whom - this time - I totally agree.

We are talking about a Rioja produced almost entirely from Garnacha grapes and which ages for 12 months in small barrels, without any over-extraction and which really has all the characteristics to which we associate the so-called "quality in the glass": intensity, finesse, elegance and drinkability.

Wanting to be picky, probably lacks a little bit of structure and complexity to make scream to miracle, but by a wine that costs just over € 10 is not really possible to ask for more.

As I always say in these cases: seeing is believing!

 

La Montesa Crianza Rioja DOCA - Palacios Remondo

Personal rating: 91/100

Grapes: 95% Garnacha, 5% Other native grapes

Aging: 12 months in small oak barrels (both French and American)

Price range: 10-15 €

 

TASTING

👀 Ruby/garnet with slightly diluted edge. Good intensity and consistency, excellent clarity

👃Very clean, more featured by finesse and elegance than breadth and intensity. Medium complexity. Red fruit (cherry and plum above all), fresh note of blood orange, sweet and balsamic nuance in the background

👄Medium-to-full bodied, coherent, velvety but at the same time vibrant. Excellent freshness, good flavor, all accompanied by a perfect fruit maturity and a light balsamic note. So, an almost perfect gustatory balance. Very light tannin. Good persistence, final on balsamic notes accompanied by a slight nuance of bitter almond.