2005 Torres Mas Rabell Tinto

[VouvrayHead]

13.5% abv, 50% garnacha, 50% carignan, $9.99

This wine is a real steal...
Quite purple!
A floral and red berry nose with a touch of dirt underneath gives way to surprisingly intense raspberry and spice flavors on the palate, with some foresty intrigue underneath a medium body with a nice finish...

I'm glad they left it at 13.5, it's almost a touch hot, but I think they took the pedal off the gas at just the right time here...

I bet this would go great with some very non-vegetarian things, but i'll take it with black olive and garlic flavors, or maybe some herbed roasted veggies...

It's not very tannic, but there's good acid here-- It might age very well, or it might fall apart. I don't have enough experience with aging to know, but it's worth a shot. The producer says it'll last 7-8 years. If the rest of it holds up, the secondary earth and spice flavors could be very nice as they come more to the front.

Awesome for $10.

[Innkeeper]

We had a bottle tonight and VH described it to a tee. A terrific wine and we got it for about the same price at Portland's Whole Foods. We will look for it again.

We matched it with Friday night Sweet and Sour Eggplant Soba (http://wines.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000504.html). We put almost a whole cup of chopped cilantro into it, and destroyed the whole dish with the bottle. Wonderful!