Bodegas Numanthia Wine Tasting with Special Guest Winemaker Jesus Jimenez

You give the appearance
Of one widely travelled
I'll bet you've seen
Things in your time
So sit down beside me
And tell me your story
If you think
You'll like yesterday's wine
Yesterday's wine
We're yesterday's wine
Aging with time
Like yesterday's wine
-Willie Nelson, Yesterday’s Wine

Bodegas Numanthia was the first of the new era of wineries from this ancient wine producing region of Northern Spain.  The wines of Spain have long been one of the best values in the world of fine wine but today the “Cult Wines” from Spain have provided serious wine collectors with (100 Point) wines like Bodegas Numanthia Termanthia for a fraction of the cost of a perfect wine from Napa Valley or Bordeaux.  If you like big reds the wines from Toro are little monsters.  Taming the tannins was the hardest thing for the new generation of winemakers from Toro and today they are making the best wines in the history of this ancient wine growing region. 

Join us was we welcome the winemaker of Bodegas Numanthia, Jesus Jimenez for a special tasting of the three wines produced at the Bodegas as well as a few older vintages to show just how well these wines can age.  The fee for this event which includes dinner is $195 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.

Bodega Numanthia Tasting at Wine Watch
with Special Guest Winemaker Jesus Jimenez
Wednesday,  February 19th
7:30 PM

2016 Numanthia Termes Toro
Price: $19.50       Your Price: $17.16

(90 Points) This red is dense and polished. Muted flavors of plum, fig pudding, loamy earth and toast mingle over solid tannins and balsamic acidity. Reserved but balanced and harmonious. Drink now through 2028. Wine Spectator

2017 Numanthia Termes Toro
*New Release

2008 Numanthia Numanthia Toro (Magnum)
2011 Numanthia Numanthia Toro (Magnum)
Numanthia is our Estate’s signature, renowned as the reference for the Toro designation. It is a subtle blend of grapes from more than 100 parcels of the finest terroirs offering unique balance, elegance and power. Numanthia’s style depends on the selection of exceptional vines, aged between 50 and 100 years old, ungrafted and non-irrigated. Year after year, their low yields deliver grapes of extreme concentration with intense fruit and structure. Our latest vintage: Numanthia 2014 2014 has been a well-balanced harvest in Toro, having had abundant rainfall in April and May, followed by a mild summer. Colour: bright cherry red with ruby highlights. Aroma: Numanthia 2014 is a powerful, intense wine, fresh yet silky, offering an explosion of fruity flavours such as ripe raspberry, blackberry and cherry. It boasts a complex nose, with spicy notes, among them mint, cloves and tobacco. Mouth: firm on the palate, with a harmonious, balanced, fleshy development. On balance, what is most noticeable in this wine is its structure, its body and depth. Its finish is firm and persistent, with a refreshing acidity and touches of mocha, shiitake mushrooms and spice. -numanthia.com

2012 Numanthia Numanthia Toro
Price: $45.00       Your Price: $39.60

(92 Points) The eponymous 2012 Numanthia is sourced from vineyards ranging from 60 to 100 years of age across the Toro appellation (they have around 100 hectares of vineyards... spread across 100 separate plots!). The wine matured in brand new oak barrels for 22 months. The aromas are mostly oak related with some toasted sesame seeds, sweet vanilla and cinnamon, some licorice and chocolate, and a core of very ripe black fruit. The oak is obviously of very good quality, but at the moment it dominates the wine and with time what emerges is still toffee, smoke and coal. The palate reveals a very young wine that is dense, tremendous, with high dry extract, concentrated, powerful, and full of dusty tannins and oak-related flavors. This beast needs a good couple of years to be tamed down by the bottle. This is a bodybuilder of a Toro -- oaky and highly extracted in its style. The 2014 will see a change and will not have 100% new oak.  Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

2014 Numanthia Numanthia Toro
Price: $45.00       Your Price: $39.60

(93 Points) This red is rich, yet remains lively, with bright berry and tangerine flavors mingling with currant, cocoa and toasty notes. Well-integrated tannins and citrusy acidity support the plush texture. Vibrant, in the modern style. Drink now through 2028. Wine Spectator

2015 Numanthia Numanthia Toro

(94 Points) This powerful red is reserved, but has depth and intensity. Anise, mineral and tar notes give this an austere character, but there's a core of ripe fruit detail, supported by well-integrated tannins and enough acidity to keep this balanced.  Wine Spectator

2006 Numanthia Termanthia Toro
NA – Sent from the winery for this event!

(95 Points) This red is so thick and rich it's almost oily in texture, with exotic flavors of black fruit, game, dried herb and hoisin. Muscular tannins keep this structured, but give way to floral and graphite notes on the finish. A powerful wine with modern structure and distinctive character. Best from 2011 through 2020. 530 cases made Wine Spectator
 

2010 Numanthia Termanthia Toro
Price: $240.75    Your Price: $211.86

This is from 100+ year vines and is a bottle that you can probably age for just as long, the bottle is 3 pounds they are looking to make it lighter and this wine is another level of big. An array of cherry liqueur like fruit, exotic spices, raspberry coulis, cinnamon with espresso, complex bouquet of aromas, violet floral notes. Big and chewy with an array of thick juicy fruit zesty spice and a long finish with big round tannins very ripe and balanced.  Finish 55+  KILLER

2011 Numanthia Termanthia Toro
Price: $240.00    Your Price: $211.20

(95 Points) Warm, earthy, ultraripe aromas of blackberry, raisin and cassis announce a bold, forward, fiercely tannic palate. Flavors of lactic oak, baked blackberry, cassis and licorice finish long, toasty, dark and chocolaty. This is brash, powerful and modern. Lusty and built to age; drink from 2018–2032.  Wine Enthusiast

2012 Numanthia Termanthia Toro
*New Release
(95 Points) Dense and polished, this red is muscular yet balanced, with firm, well-integrated tannins and lively acidity supporting rich flavors of blackberry, cocoa, licorice and mineral. Monolithic now, but has real depth. Best from 2018 through 2028.  Wine Spectator

Menu
Pata Negra, Charcuterie and Selection of Cheese: Manchego, Cabrales, Idiazabal
Grilled Octopus with Black Olive Tapenade and Purple Potato Hash
Short Rib Empanadas with Mole Sauce
Chocolate Covered Bacon

The fee for this event which includes dinner is $195 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.

 A bit about Numanthia:

Numanthia is situated in north western Spain's Castilla y León region, close to the Portuguese border. The heart of the region and home to the vineyards is Toro, a region of long standing winemaking tradition going back to ancient Roman times. It is crossed by the Río Duero, which also links such great wine-producing areas as Ribera del Duero, Rueda, and the Porto region of Portugal.

The name of the estate evokes the city of Numancia, renowned in antiquity for its resistance to Roman occupation. Assailed by Scipion's legion in 134 BC, the inhabitants of Numancia resisted heroically and preferred to die rather than surrender.

Numancia thus stands for Tenacity & Resistance, also characteristic of the Toro vineyards, which have survived both extreme climatic conditions and the ravages of phylloxera.

During the Middle Ages, wines from Toro were enjoyed all over Spain, and were even taken on board Spanish fleets to the New World.

The Toro DO (Denominacion de Origen, a set of national laws that outline and regulate delimited regional and site-specific wine-growing appellations) was created in 1987 with just four wineries. Now, in the Toro DO, there are over forty wineries and over 1200 registered wine growers, and 5,500 hectares (14,000 acres) currently under vine – one third of Napa's 43,000 acres.

The Numanthia estate is situated at Valdefinjas, a small village of 100 in the region of Toro. Numanthia was founded in 1998 by the Eguren family, native of Rioja, with the sole aim of producing the best wine from Toro.

Toro is a place of long-standing wine-making traditions, as the vineyards go back to ancient Roman times.

The best soils for viticulture are composed of very sandy loams on the surface, with moisture-retaining clay below. The roots can thus easily work their way down to cooler depths that contain moisture and nutrition that are seriously lacking in such arid conditions on the surface. This type of soil, and the hot summer, produces ideal ripening conditions for grapes. The diversity of local soil composition adds to the wines' complexity: for example, vines whose soils have higher clay content will show greater fruit intensity, whilst those on sandy and gravelly soils will have more body and structure.

The Toro meso-climate is continental with an oceanic influence. With an average rainfall of only nine-to-12 inches (350 to 400 mm) per year, the region is very dry and at the limit of what is possible for non-irrigated vines. These could not survive without the humidity retained in the layers of clay in the sub-soil. The summer months are hot by day and cool by night, with thermal variations that are often greater than 20°C (68°F). Winter months are very cold. These extreme conditions produce grapes of exceptional quality.

Toro wines are made from a single grape variety specific to the region called "Tinta de Toro" - which is part of the Tempranillo family and is a pre-phylloxeran massal selection that is specific to this region. In Toro they believe this grape may be Spain's original variety, with Tempranillo in Rioja having sprung from it. Tinta de Toro is one of the darkest of all red grapes.

In the sandy soils of the region, "Tinta de Toro" is resistant to Phylloxera – one of the only places in Europe to have survived the blight. What is extremely rare in Europe is for these vines to be ungrafted and to have naturally resisted Phylloxera for over 140 years.

Numanthia is a patchwork of over 200 tiny plots (pagos) at average altitude of 2,300 feet. These are low density vineyards that survive without irrigation. The winery owns 121 acres close to the village of Valdefinjas, in Toro (south of Zamora) among which:

- 50 of those acres host vines that are aged 70 -100 years.

- an exceptional plot of 12 acres in Argujillo named Teso los Carriles, with vines over 120 years old; the vineyard’s name in rough translation is "Road on the Hill". This is where the grapes for the Termanthia wine are grown.

The foundation of the Numanthia range is the production and selection of the best grapes from the Toro terroir. Grapes from low-yielding old vines - many 50 years and older - are hand-picked at optimal ripeness and concentration.

Winemaking then consists of extracting their full potential, particularly the intense fruit flavors that are typical of the Tinta de Toro grape, as well as structure and elegance.

This approach is common to the all wines produced, each having its own particular style.

The Termanthia comes from one of the only pre-phylloxera vineyards in Europe, and is approximately 120 years old. The grapes are hand de-stemmed, one berry at a time, crushed by foot and fermented in a traditional oak container.

Numanthia - Termes

Termes shows Toro's quintessential fruit: Ripe but fresh, with velvety texture and lively structure, this wine leaves a general impression of balance and elegance.

Numanthia - Numanthia

Numanthia is the estate’s signature wine and uses the best grapes from the appellation. The winemakers aim to reveal and magnify the natural quality of fruit harvested at perfect maturity. The result is glorious fruit flavours and very complex aromas. Solidly built, with tannins that are both clear-cut and well integrated, Numanthia shows both power and precision.

Numanthia - Termanthia

The award winning Termanthia is the ultimate expression of the best of vineyard plots in Toro with vines that over 120 years old and at an altitude of 800 meters. The hyper-concentrated fruit produces considerable aromatic complexity and shows tremendous power on the palate with plenty of fleshy roundness and as much elegance and precision as it does intensity. This is a wine that will keep very well, gaining even more complexity in bottle.