As always, this La Mancha Tempranillo is a wine that should be on every dinner table a Vino Tinto that will fill you with a warm, fuzzy glow and will pair deliciously with anything from a hearty meat stew, kebabs off the barbeque to a salty Manchego cheese. A nose of black cherry, plum, blackberry and stewed strawberry with dusty, vanilla-scented oak and a dab of black chocolate. The palate is packed with this sweet generous fruit but with a stoney acidity that makes it feel quite refreshing, and just the gentlest nibble of tannin. Very long with a warming glow on the finish.

#Tasting#

On our Spanish buying trip a couple of years ago, we must have tasted more than a hundred wines before we alighted upon the garnachas and tempranillos of Familia Bastida. When the winemaker gave us a taste of his top wine, made from old vines planted in 1950, we honestly thoughtthat it would be a 20+ wine. Imagine how our jaws dropped when he told us it was much less. Imagine also our excruciating attempts to hold our best poker faces as we asked him to double-check the price for us. But sure enough, the price was right. The Familia Bastida Alceo really does drink like a more expensive wine. It’s jollyhard to find wines of this pedigree, made with such old vines, at such a price.