Ep 067: The Grape Miniseries — Tempranillo

Facebook friends voted and the Grape Miniseries won for the topic this week! So for the first podcast of 2013 we tackle the King of the Spanish reds: Tempranillo. It has more…and less… to it than meets the eye. After lots of wonderful thanks and fun comments, we get to this fascinating, native Spanish grape. A few notes on it… The grape is from northern Spanish and gets its name from  “Temprano” which means early, since it ripens 2 weeks before Rioja’s other important grape – Garnacha The wine is deep-colored, lower in acid and alcohol, and has amazing ageability but a lot of times it’s kind of bland on flavor. If it’s got any flavor it’s kind of like berries, plum, tobacco, vanilla, leather, and herbs. It can be a lot better in a blend, as the folks in Rioja can tell you. Climate and elevation is everything for Tempranillo — it does best in cool climates and at elevation.  Yields HAVE to be controlled to produce a good wi [...]