Mourvedre My Darling, Mourvedre

*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from the PR folks for Quivira Winery

Content Originally Posted on my blog, Wannabe Wino.

I feel like that commercial for hair club for men...I'm not only the founder, I'm a client too...I've been a member of the Quivira Wine Club for going on 4 years now. I have tons of their wines in my basement. I usually tend to sit on the reds for a bit though, so I'm happy to have a chance to taste them earlier through sampling so I can decide what more to order for myself and how long to hold my own bottles. Now, I also LOVE LOVE LOVE Mouredre, Monastrell, Mataro, whatever you want to call it. One of my favorite "obscure" grapes. Tonight I pulled the 2006 Quivira Mourvedre from the basement, thinking it might work well with a pot roast I had made. I'm guessing this retails for around $30....I know I paid $27 for the one I got in a club shipment, it had a real cork closure and clocked in at 14.8% alcohol by volume. It appears this vintage received a score of 89 from Wine Enthusiast, so I'm going to go ahead and cross post this blog over on the 89 Project.

On the nose I found campfire smoke...I love that smell in wine, black fruit, blackberry, boysenberry, cedar, vanilla, chocolate, spice, and herbs. It had that dark brooding nose I love in wine. In the mouth, more black fruit with black cherry thrown in, blackberry, herbs, chocolate and pepper, also some tart raspberries lurking in the background. The wine had nice tannins that will see it through a few years, though we really enjoyed it now with our pot roast!

Vinos Sin-Ley M4 Monastrell 2006

While other vintages of this producer came away with numbers that would appeal to any "Score Whore" out there, the 2006 was assigned 89. Since I love both the 89 Project and the varietal, monastrell, how could I resist? I snatched the bottle up.
The winemaker's notes say:The 2006 M4 is from Bullas. Dark ruby-colored, this strong effort has a classy nose of smoke, pencil lead, mineral, and blueberry. Ripe and mouth-filling, the wine is well-balanced and long in the finish. "Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate89 Points.

Hmmm. Yes, I definitely agree. Very pretty color. Less fruit than I would have expected and a lot more mineral notes. While this is a tasty, easy drinking wine, it had a little too large a scoop of the bitterness that can drive people away from mourvedre. Examples I prefer are the delightful Juan Gill Monastrell or Cline we had at Wine Bar Wednesdays past. Opened several days, the aroma converted to cocoa powder dusted blueberries and the flavors became more chocolaty with a solid core of dark berry. At $11.99, this is a nice every day wine. It is worth picking up especially if you like less fruit forward wines and want to try something different.

Cline Small Berry Mourvedre (WE 89)

I had the Cline Small Berry Mourvedre, most recently, last Thursday night. I confess, I adore this wine and used to visit a restaurant that carried it just so that I could drink it on a weekly basis. But, I moved away from that city about a year ago, and had completely forgotten about this little gem of a wine. Until last Thursday. When I saw it on the wine list, I knew we had to revisit it.

When you first open the Small Berry, you get tons of tobacco and leather on the nose. Really heady stuff, so give it a good 30 minutes to decant before proceeding. Then the palate is very cigar box and spicy jam, some raisin and prune hide in there too. The tannins are satiny and elegant, with just enough linger to let you know that you just had something really good.

We had this wine with ostrich and elk and it was fabulous. It really stood up to the gamey flavors of our dishes while not overpowering them. It also went really well with the salty bleu cheeses we had proceeding the meal.

I have only seen this wine in restaurants so far, but I know you can order it from on-line retailers. Every time I check, it is around $30, and well worth it. This wine is easily an 89, every time I have had it, it doesn't disappoint. I think that it is varietal-y correct, consistent and worth a try.