Wine Review - 2009 Bodegas Faustino VII: Now THIS Is Why We Love Spanish Wine

This was a bit of an impulse purchase but at $16 wasn't a stretch to pick up.  We have a 1999 Faustino I in our cellar so we figure why not try the baby brother.

We have been fans of Spanish wine and the Spanish flavour profile/wine style for a few years now.  Rioja wines based on Tempranillo, Mencia from Bierzo have all been fantastic tasting journeys within a country of so many different wines.

This Rioja is a blend of Tempranillo and Mazuelo (a grape which we are not too familiar with).  In the glass, it is not that spectacular looking.  Slightly watery and thin, it looks as though it would be a lighter red.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  This wine has a power-packed nose.  It is oaky with strong notes of leather, tobacco, and chocolate covered cherries.  It smells fantastic....so complex and robust.  It makes you want to drink it.  Once you do however, the taste does not quite live up to the nose BUT it is a very nice tasting wine.  The smell of this wine just is so fantastic and is one of the reasons that we love Spanish wine.

The taste is very good and maintains a solid balance of tannins (of which this has plenty) and roundness.  The wine is an excellent example of nice everyday drinking wine from Spain.  The wine tastes a little better than the pricetag would indicate but overall we could see ourselves drinking more of this one.

	Tasting Notes:	Score:
Sight (0-5)	Slightly lighter in colour than the body of the wine, not remarkable but certain not a bad looking wine in the glass.	4.0
Smell (0-5)	Oak, Vanilla, Leather, and Dark Cherries dominate.	4.5
Taste (0-10)	A delicious example of Rioja showing solid dark fruit and oak with a great mouthfeel and round overall taste.	8.5
	Total:	17.0 / 20  (85.0)

This is a great everyday Spanish wine and will be purchased again.

Keep on drinking!

Chris & Shannon

PS - a note to one of our Twitter followers that we did purchase a bottle of 2007 Hoya Cadenas Reserva Privada so there will be a sampling in the near future. Looking forward to comparing notes.

Also, our math was off on this one (aka Chris' math was off), the score was 17.0/20.0 which in real math is 85.0%.