Early tasting today of a Tempranillo bottled in September. Of course I tasted it when I bottled it but I wanted to try it again after giving it time to overcome the bottle shock, a condition that occurs due to the wine absorbing a bit too much oxygen during bottling and causes it to taste flat or muted. This is a temporary condition and usually clears within a couple weeks after bottling. Tempranillo is predominantly a Spanish grape often blended in port wines but also makes a really nice dry, medium to full bodied red wine with fairly high tannin levels, somewhat similar to Cabernet Sauvignon. Tempranillo ages really well, and I will probably age this batch at least a year before I sample it again, and likely 2 years before I push it off on my unsuspecting friends and family. It also pairs well with steak, lamb, and tomato-based pasta dishes, or so I've heard. I'll talk a bit more about aging and food pairing in future posts.

Tempranillo is one of my favorite dry red wines, which is why I couldn't resist a little premature tasting. This particular vintage was from 2020, so it is a very young red wine and will improve dramatically after a few years in the bottle. It has a deep ruby color that I expect will fade somewhat as it ages to more of a garnet color based on my previous Tempranillo vintages. As to be expected from a young wine in need of aging, the tannins are sharp and it has a high acidic level, both of which should soften over time and complement each other. It does have a distinct peppery taste, not uncommon for this varietal, and actually one of the reasons I like it so much. I'd definitely classify this as a case of "so far so good" with the main problem being just having the patience to allow it to mature. Since steak is somewhat of a Christmas dinner tradition in my family maybe I'll break out a bottle next December to see how it's progressing. I have a bourbon barrel aged Cab-Syrah blend from 2019 that should be getting pretty tasty about that time also, maybe we'll have to break out a bottle of each for a little taste-testing, if I can still remember it by then!