Bassins & Jaleo

Eric and I trekked out to MacArthur last night with Derek in tow. D met Andy, the new WineBoyfriend, and I told him about the Shiraz tasting and the '97 Henscke disappointment. He said if we ever got a corked bottle from him again to return it (and that we shouldn't returned it this time.. wouldn't have done that without the invitation; I find that too gauche). Picked up a few more bottles of wine for the Boston trip this weekend. (Are we really going into the city to find the Porn Star wine, Eric??)

Afterwards we shared a bottle of Finca Luzon's "Altos de Luzon" '02 Jumilla last night along with some well-paired tapas at Jaleo. Big juicy plum right up front on the nose, blackberries, a hint of red raspberry, sensual cassis with the right ammount of spice. It's a blend of Monastrell (50), Cab Sauv (25) and Temp (25), you could pick up the varietal characterstics if you knew how to extract them but it was very well integrated. Has the right structure that aging would improve. Our bartender friend at Jaleo who has yet to fail us reccommended it over the Toro we were looking at, saying it was a steal for the price (it was!), rated in the low 90s by Parker.

The spicy Mourvedre played exceedingly well off the Tempranillo.. would be interested in trying a M-T wine without the Cab. Suggestions, anyone?

We also shared an entire 500ml bottle of Olivares Dulce Monastrell. It was great, like sucking blueberry, vanilla, berry syrup.. But it was just too much. A glass each would've sufficed. My taste buds were FRIED by the end of the night; the Monastrell ended up tasting like syrupy zinc. uggh. lesson learned.