2015 Alto Moncayo Veraton Garnacha Review
Apparently I had the 2013 vintage and did not remember (refer back to my How to Pick Wine Video regarding tracking!) but I marked it as a "buy again" option so I was pretty happy taking a swing on this one. I will go ahead and admit I messed up - we were running a bit chaotic prior to dinner and I did not decant this wine (Grenache) which is a BONEHEAD MOVE, Y'ALL.
Full body wines such as Grenache need to decant for 45 minutes - 1 hour. Decanting / Aerating does two things - sediment separation and allows oxygen to react with the wine. My personal opinion is this activity softens the wine and allows the flavor to overcome the mouthfeel. This critical error has inspired me to make a new help video on what wine to decant and for how long. I'll work on that this week.
Moving on, tthe nose was horrendous regret for not decanting and berries (not telling you which berries because that is a private matter). I'll just go ahead and say the taste right out the bottle was not good - so please heed my advice if you buy it. It had a dull, bitter taste and lacked what I was expecting for the price tag I paid.
FAST FORWARD to after the bottle opened up. This was a completely different wine. While I was still mad at it for acting so immature an hour earlier I was eager to forgive it. It took on rich cocoa and buttery flavors and had that typical velvet mouthfeel. I had an anchovy and prosciutto pizza that paired quite nice with that rich wine. This is definitely a wine you want to have with some lighter fare because you may bloat and die.
I do recommend this wine but even after it opened up I think there are some better options for the price range (see some of my other reviews).