Numanthia’s ‘Crazy’ Blend and Tua Rita’s Forever Syrah: Weekly Tasting Report (Aug 10-16)

I don’t call young, new wines “crazy” very often but the new, tiny-production red from Spain’s Numanthia, the Numanthia Termanthia Toro IPSE NV, is just that. And Estate Director Lucas Lowi flew over from the region of Toro to our tasting office in Tuscany to discuss the 300 bottles of the wine he made and explain the general change in winemaking philosophy of the well-known winery, which is owned by Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy.

“Ipse is the Latin word for ‘itself,’” which expresses “the non-vintage notion of the terroir,” Lowi said. “It is the timeless expression of the old vines of Toro.”

The wine is a blend of vintages – 2014, 2015 and 2016. The blend is made in small glass demijohns and then transferred to a terracotta amphora and aged for another year. The original wines were Numanthia’s Termanthia, which is a produced from ancient vines, with most being between 100 and 200 years old.

“It’s a unique wine and we hope to make it every year,” Lowi added.

On a more regular level, Lowi said that Numanthia has been trying to move away from its past style of making extremely concentrated and woody wines. He said he wanted his reds to be more transparent and drinkable for today’s market, which is evident in the new releases of his entry-level wines, the 2019 and 2020 Numanthia Tinta de Toro Termes. This is particularly true with the 2020, which has super length and plenty of crunchy fruit. It sells for an average price of about $25 a bottle, according to Wine Searcher.

One of the keys to the new Termes is earlier picking – about two weeks earlier than in the past in most cases, Lowi said. “We understood that we had to advance the harvest to keep better levels of acidity. We are focused on this point for parcels. About 15 years ago we harvested at the end of September or early October. It was really, really ripe,” he said.

Maintaining freshness with ripeness is equally important with the best wines of Tuscany at the moment, and Tua Rita is a producer that seems to have it all in hand, particularly with its syrah in 2020. The vintage looks to be an excellent one for syrah as well as other grape varieties. Tua Rita makes its esteemed Per Sempre syrah as well as one made only in amphora, the Tua Rita Syrah Toscana Keir 2020. Both are excellent in 2020, but Per Sempre may be one of Tua Rita’s best syrahs ever.

I have been having discussions and debates with Italian winemakers this summer about syrah in general. For example, I don’t think it produces many top wines in Sicily even though the grape has been held in esteem by winemakers on the island for a long time now. It seems to work best in Tuscany, particularly on the coast where the combination of the maritime climate and deep soils give syrah-based wines true varietal character. They’re not just nice reds wines like in most other parts of Tuscany.

An Italian wine in the tasting report that is always a joy to taste is the Galardi Campania Terra di Lavoro. The most recent release, 2020, is a beauty. It’s a blend of aglianico and piedirosso from Campania grown on ancient volcanic soils. It always has fantastic aromas and flavors of blackberries, black pepper and volcanic ash when young, and it metamorphizes into something almost Bordeaux-like. In fact, I served a 10-year-old bottle at dinner blind to some Bordeaux negociants and my tasting team and they all thought it was from Pauillac!

READ MORE: TOP 100 WINES OF ITALY 2021

FOCUSED CARMENERES

This week’s highlights from our Hong Kong office featured a few great wines from the respected Veneto producers Zenato and Inama, who are known for their great Amarones and textbook Soaves, respectively.

While Inama delivered the enticing Inama Soave Classico Foscarino 2020 – a wine whose mineral quality takes your breath away – its carmeneres, which come from the red clay silt of Colli Berici, are equally exciting and eye-opening. Intrigued by the focused nose full of dried herbs and spicy, peppery characters, Senior Editor Zekun Shuai found the smooth, tangy and deliciously peppery Inama Carmenere Veneto Più 2019 more akin to a fine cabernet gernischt, which is China’s unique but obscure expression of carmenere.

The most exciting wine from Inama, however, was the Carmenere Colli Berici Capital O Riserva 2018, which is a top selection from the 12-hectare vineyard and shows impressive depth and concentration with the full ripeness you would expect from a late-ripening variety, yet it remains fresh and spicy with posh, seductive tannins.

It rivals the best, well-ripened carmeneres from the regions in Chile where the grape thrives, like Apalta, Maipo and Aconcagua. So if you want to prove that carmenere greatness can come from places other than Chile, this is the bottle to take to a blind tasting to wow the crowd.

Meanwhile, Zenato’s two Amarones reminded Zekun of how ultra-ripeness and richness do not necessarily preclude freshness and poise. The Zenato Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2017 and Zenato Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Sergio Zenato Riserva 2016 both showed typical Amarone richness with real depth, concentration, polished tannins and high alcohol, with each element beautifully balanced and interwoven.

Both wines are among the best we’ve tasted from this producer, but the more selective Riserva 2016 is heading toward the next level, carried by its graceful richness, unfathomable depth on the nose and incredibly seamless and tight-knit tannins on the palate. Layers and layers of complexity will develop when it gets the long sleep it deserves in your cellar.

READ MORE: TOP 100 VALUES WINES OF 2021

And staying in Europe, Senior Editor Stuart Pigott had a diverse bunch of French wines to catch up on and they yielded some interesting surprises, including a couple of “Lieu-Dit” wines – or what French wine law calls single vineyards that aren’t classified as Premier Cru or Grand Cru. The most remarkable of these wines was the Paul Kluber Riesling Alsace Breitenberg 2019.

“It’s the first time I tasted the wines from Paul Kluber and he’s a real discovery, making wines with a wonderful elegance and freshness, and this dry riesling has vibrant aromas of yellow peach and lemon curd,” Stuart said. “A lot of concentration is crammed into the sleek body. It’s as exciting as many Grand Cru wines!”

The other Lieu-Dit wine was the Château Gignon Chateauneuf-du-Pape Lieu-Dit Terre Ferme 2020, and it could not have tasted more different from the Paul Kluber wine. Stuart describes aromas of plums, forest berries, liquorice and old balsamic vinegar: “It’s got serious tannins and has been made to last. The flavors are more stony than spicy. Here’s a very striking Chateauneuf-du-Pape!”

– James Suckling, Editor/Chairman; Zekun Shuai, Senior Editor; Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.