Wine Review - 2011 Club Privado Rioja: Spanish Wines Are Just Awesome

We picked this wine up on the weekend at Bishop's Cellar here in Halifax. We are pretty positive we have had this wine before but probably in the pre-Blog days.  We continue to love the value that comes with Spanish wines.  Great flavours at reasonable prices are always on order with the wines of Spain.  We love Tempranillo, Monastrell, Mencia, Albarino, Godello, Cava, and the list goes on and on.

This is typical Tempranillo which is to say it is light in body but still quite dark red.  It has fairly quick legs in the glass and again in what we would call typical fashion is on the thinner side of things.

The nose is very familiar and not just because we think we have had it before.  It just has that Rioja nose, which is spicy white pepper, with cedar notes, and black cherries.  Really nice nose.

The wine has really nice tannins with a round mouth feel.  There are black currents, plums, licorice, and vanilla flavours that work their way across the palate into a tart finish.  The wine is thinner than you might think but with oak flavours it was a very good body.  We really liked it.

	Tasting Notes:	Score:
Sight (0-5)	Light body but dark red with quick legs	4.0
Smell (0-5)	A Rioja nose with white pepper, cedar, and black cherries.	4.0
Taste (0-10)	Tannic wine with a tart finish and black currents, plums, licorice, and vanilla flavours.	8.5
	Total:	16.5 / 20 (82.5%)

We paid $17.50 for this wine locally and it is worth every penny.  We paired it with Tapas to boot, so it goes well with olives, Serrano ham, beet salad, and good bread from Julien's Patisserie.  Viva Espana!

Keep on tasting!

Chris & Shannon