Thursday, July 31, 2008

2001 Finca Allende Rioja

Last week I was reading a post about the 2001 Finca Allende Rioja on the message boards at erobertparker.com that stated this wine seemed to be fading. Multiple posters gave similar impressions, so knowing that I had a bottle, I decided to give it a go myself. Considering that I don't have optimum storage conditions in my passive cellar (room temperature, the horror!) I wondered how my bottle would be. The 2001 Allende got great reviews (90+ from Parker, Tanzer, etc) and had been very fairly priced around $22, but it didn't surprise me too much to hear it might not be a long-lived wine.

I was certainly intrigued then when I opened the bottle and the first pour offered a very nice nose of fruit. The first taste was almost a bit pruny, but the wine quickly settled down, offering a lot of nuanced fruit flavors without being too overdone. On the second night, the wine hadn't lost anything, if anything even offering a bit more on the palate with a hint of spice. Maybe there was some bottle variation, because this bottle was drinking superbly for me. I wish now I had more.

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