Thursday, March 15, 2012

Bodega Emina 2003 Emina 12 Months (Spain)

My Spanish is a little rusty ... okay it's a lot rusty ... to be perfectly honest it's non-existent, but here I am staring at a bottle of Bodega Emina 2003 Emina "12 meses en barrica" and from what I can garner from the back label, this wine is aged 12 months in French and American oaks, but no mention of the grape varieties used in the making of the wine.  A quick check of the website leads me really nowhere about this wine, but then again why should it, this bottle is already 9 years old - but it did lead me to amend the title of this post and add the "12 months" moniker.  Well enough about trying to learn the make up of this wine, let's look at the way the wines tastes now that it has had so much time in bottle.  The nose is red licorice laced with a touch of herbal ... the longer it sat in glass the more the 13.5% alcohol started to show (which in truth isn't an over the top amount) to the point where the wine smelled like alcohol soaked raspberries - but in a good way.  The taste started out as dried black fruit, on the sweeter side, and added herbal, menthol and cocoa-raspberries as the night wore on.  I was genuinely impressed with this wine, I thought it has hit its sweet spot with lots of great fruit (more dried than fresh) still showing through and there was very little evidence of the wood used, except for a bit of a smoky finish with a cherry-chalky linger ... plus the tannins are quite smooth, but you can tell they were once there, and quite robust.  Really liked this wine.


No comments: