c.18€ reduced from 25€; 15,5% abv; 18 months in new French oak barrels of 225 and 500 liters. 53% Monastrell, 17% Syrah, 14% Merlot, 10% Cab Sauv, 6% Garnacha tintorera.
Like what is suspected to be at the center of many galaxies, this wine is a super-massive black hole. Impenetrably dark and hollow. Apparently if a human would pass within the event horizon of a black hole, a process called spaghettification will occur, where he would be vertically stretched and horizontally compressed (and, of course, the human will snap at weak points - why is it that uncooked spaghetti always breaks into three bits?). The spaghettification caused by this wine is a bit different - it is so strongly alcoholic that just sniffing it made me feel as wobbly as a cooked strand of spaghetti. So massively extracted that it has a shell of dark fruit and tannin but no substance to fill up that void - it is strange to see such a substantial wine with so little substance.
I think I won't be opening any more wines "in the name of science" for a while. Back to thin, acidic, underripe wines now!
So I opened this instead:
Weingut Willi Bründlmayer Riesling Langenloiser Steinmassel 2007
17,84€; 12,5% abv. A nice Kamptal Riesling, mineral, slightly honeyed, pure - but at the moment it does take several hours open for the scent to become this expressive. Dry, powerful and rich, pleasantly high in acidity, savoury. Good stuff!