Numanthia Wines from Spain

We have spent countless years downplaying the wines of Spain because they had never lived up to their potential. The “Great Wine Blight,” the almost total destruction of the vineyards of Europe in the 1860’s by a small bug, Philloxera, resulted in the migration of many French winemakers and grape growers to Spain. Spain was slow in being infected so the French immigrants had time to set up shop and teach the locals how to make wine in the French style where they made wine from the local grapes and failed at it miserably. Spain’s northern provinces should be ideal for growing fine wine grapes but the French, in applying their winemaking techniques to the local fruit produced nothing but mediocre wines and damaged the reputation of Spanish wines for almost a century.
The Philloxera problem was solved by grafting the vines onto resistant American root stock, a procedure that still continues to this day. Some of the French expatriates returned home to work with grape varieties that they were familiar with, but many stayed behind. What also stayed behind were the winemaking techniques of old. Time passed, things changed and the world advanced; all except for the Spanish wines.
It was in the 1950’s that wine science exploded. It started in California and soon spread around the world, changing the winemaking and grape growing techniques forever. It was inevitable that these advances would reach Spain; they did and changed that countries wine for the better. Today Spanish wines, made from native Spanish grapes, can stand head and shoulders with wines made anyplace in the world.
As it turns out, there are two areas of the world that have remained Philloxera free and still grow their vines on their own roots; Chile and of all places, the far western part of the Castilla y Leon region in north-western Spain, where a clone of the tempranillo grape called tinta de torro has proven resistant to Philloxera attack for over 160 years. One of the major producers of tinta de torro wines is Numanthia, a winery that specializes in that grape variety and knows how to coax the best of its qualities out of it. While the wines of Numanthia will not answer the questions about the quality of post and pre Philloxera wines, they will certainly prove that Spanish wines are now right up there with the best of them.

Numanthia 2008 Tinta de Torro Termes ($30). The grapes for this wine were handpicked from vines that were an average of 30 years old. All of the TLC paid off with a wine that departs from the usual red wine flavors and aromas and sets new roads for itself. The wine has a very prominent raspberry, red currant and cherry aroma with just a bit of spice, oak, eucalyptus and a suggestion of summer flowers. The flavor, found only as a suggestion in many wines, is in full display here. Pomegranate mingles with raspberries, cherries, anise and oak and ends in a finish that defies description. The Numanthia 2008 Tinta de Torro Termes is a wine that is in a class by itself and deservedly belongs to be there.

Numanthia 2007 Tinta de Torro Numanthia ($60). The fruit for the Numanthia 2007 Tinta de Torro Numanthia come from mountain grown vines that are between 70 and 100 years old and both these factors, the age of the vines and the attitude of the vineyard herald a spectacular wine; and it is. This is a wine that has the feel of silk about it and displays a kaleidoscope aroma of cherry raspberry, red currant and cassis and a background of soft oak and a hint of cinnamon, nutmeg and black pepper. The flavor is massive, stressing pomegranates and red currants with dark fruit and cocoa background and, of course, oak which carry over to an extraordinary long and complex finish of fruit and spice. We can sum up our review of this wine in one word, WOW!