Bodegas San Isidro BSI Gemina Cuvee Seleccion, Jumilla, Spain

I'm thankful to my Spanish friend which lives in one of the southern regions of Spain (Murcia) in which they plant the majestic grape variety: Monastrell! She introduced me some celebrity wines made of 100% monastrell. This is something that you have to taste if you are an amateur wine lover just like me! Probably you have heard of the grape variety as "mourvédre" which is its name in French. It's a difficult variety to grow preferring "its face in the hot sun and its feet in the water". This means that they are planted mostly in the southern part of Spain and France. It's a prominent component of GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre) Blends which is classic combination of the Rhone Valley reds (which I like a lot as well). The price - quality relationship is unbeatable!

Aging & Type of Oak:
5 months in new barrels (2/3 American oak and 1/3 French oak)

Annual Production(in bottles): 75,000

Awards & Recognition:
Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate (June 2011), 90 points.

http://www.i-winereview.com/NonReportTastings/0910montastrellSelections.php

MONASTRELL: GREAT VALUES FROM SPAIN

The International Wine Review recently conducted an in-depth tasting of the latest releases of Monastrell and Monastrell blend wines from Murcia and neighboring regions of Mediterranean Spain. Monastrell based wines haven’t acquired the iconic status of the Tempranillo based wines of Rioja and Ribera del Duero or the Garnacha wines of Penedés. However, our tasting shows that producers are making excellent progress in improving the quality of Monastrell wines. Most importantly for the consumer, many of the wines we tasted are either good or exceptional values. Where else can one find $15 wines scoring over 90 points and $8 wines scoring 88 or higher? The plummeting value of the dollar relative to the Euro may quickly raise the prices of these wines, so savvy consumers should stock up now!

Monastrell is grown in several parts of Spain and in France. While its true origin is not known, it first became established in Cataluña where it took on the names Mourvèdre (after Muviedro, the Moorish name for the city of Sagunto, near Valencia) and Mataró (after Mataró in Cataluña). In Cataluña the grape was grown by monasteries, leading to the name Monastrell (from the Latin monasteriellu) in that region. From Spain the grape made its way to Mediterranean France where it became a principal blending component of Châteauneuf-du-Pape as well as acquiring fame on its own in Bandol. Today, Monastrell is the 5th most popular varietal in Spain in terms of acreage planted.

Monastrell is a thick-skinned, black grape high in tannins and late to ripen. It’s a difficult grape to grow with a tendency to produce good yields one year and small yields the next, and growers have to wait as long as ten years for new vines to produce commercial quantities of fruit. It grows best in hot climates with long growing seasons, like one finds in the Spanish comunidad autónoma (i.e., regional government) of Murcia, home to the Denominaciones de Origen (DO’s) of Jumilla, Yecla, and Bullas. The high altitudes of most the vineyards in these DO’s ensure cool nighttime temperatures and large diurnal temperature variations that ensure acidity in the wines.

Monastrell presents several challenges to the winemaker. First and foremost, because of the region’s high temperatures, care must be taken in the vineyard to harvest fruit that is optimally ripe phenolically but not overly ripe and jammy. Secondly, because Monastrell produces hard tannic wines there is need to reduce harsh tannin extraction by handling fruit as gently as possible, carefully controlling the temperature and speed of fermentation, and mascerating grapes with skins. In addition, because Monastrell is highly reductive, winemakers need to do more frequent pumpovers and racking during fermentation and barrel aging. Also, the better winemakers of Murcia are quickly learning how to tame the wild character of the grape through blending and other means in order to produce more fruit forward and accessible wines while still retaining some of the earthy characteristics that make Monastrell wines unique.

We report the results of our tastings below, organized by DO: Jumilla, Yecla, Bullas, and other regions of Spain. As is customary, these wines were tasted blind and scored using our 100 point scale. Prices are reported only for wines currently imported to the US.

Jumilla

With 32 thousand hectares under vine, Jumilla is the largest of Murcia’s DO’s. It’s also the oldest, having acquired DO status in 1956. But in one sense, it’s a century behind the times. With its sandy soils, Jumilla escaped Spain’s phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century only to find the nasty bug invading its vineyards a century later. While the infestation reduced production significantly, the need to replant gave Jumilla the opportunity to improve its vineyards, which it did with the strong encouragement of the consejo regulador of the DO. Improved vineyard management and better winemaking led to wines of significantly higher quality and helped put Jumilla on the international wine map. About 85 percent of total vineyard acreage is in Monastrell.