OK, the confusion has now been cleared up. So it was Signo Bobal 2008.
Your remarks are very interesting, Oswaldo, and I appreciate the interest. Many thanks. I concur with some of them and don't quite understand some others, obviously. I'll try to reply to your questions and, in the process, point out where I differ. (I'm doing so while I drink a glass of the 2010 Finca Sandoval which we bottled yesterday. It helps. And it gives me the courage needed to give you a piece of earth-shattering info: no, the vineyard from which we source Signo Bobal, Entrecañadas, is not at "600-700m altitude", but at... 780 meters! Also, the vines are 72 years old. Imagine the pain living all that time at such an uncivilized altitude...)
First of all, a remark on the vintage: in our region 2008 wasn't great, but rather 'good, useful' for pleasant wines which are fine to drink relatively young, as we had an inconvenient heat wave just before harvesting and ripeness just exploded on us. Good for restaurants, particularly, rather than for extended aging. But we try to keep a steady line whatever the vintage conditions, so in our case the differences are not huge.
Then, on to your definition of the wine: "Significant but not excessive oak. (...) Ripe plums, chocolate powder and rosemary over significant but not excessive oak. Satisfying body and tannins, healthy acidity, good balance, not at all hot."
From that, you go on to some questions: "Is this level of ripeness a stylistic choice (for FS's winemaker?) or is it mandated by climate? In a version with less ripeness, would the tannins be too green? If it's a stylistic choice, wouldn't a version with less ripeness and no wood show the Bobal character more clearly?"
I sense a degree of what I call "wine ideology" here, while I rather move in the simpler realm of viticulture and winemaking. That's why I can't really understand the contrast between "healthy acidity, good balance, not at all hot" and then a "level of ripeness" which you find excessive. I can assure you that in this particularly hot and dry corner of the world, there would be heat, flabbiness and little balance in any wine made with overripe grapes. Do I take it that you prefer a certain degree of under-ripeness?
We have always tried, even in years like 2008, to harvest at 'just ripe' levels, because otherwise the result is irretrievably hot and jammy. Impossible to be 100% right, of course, but we'd rather err on the short side. Particularly for one of our main varieties, syrah, we always avoid waiting for the (supposed) full ripeness of skins, when they shrivel.
That said, we make Mediterranean wines, and we don't try to mimic Loire wines. If we did, I suspect we wouldn't be very successful.
You and I have different tastes, obviously: I wouldn't call the oaking 'significant' (no new oak at all, aged for 11 months in used, mostly 300-liter barrels), and tasters at the Lavinia Paris tasting of Spanish wines told me it was "the least oaky wine of all" (OK - this doesn't mean much in a Spanish wine tasting...). We use oak to polish tannins with the micro-ox it brings and help in the wine's longevity, not as a flavoring agent. We do try to make wines that will age, not just fresh young wines.
I also notice in our wines the typical limestone minerality which lends them an 'umami', almost salty quality when from such terroirs as the Côte-d'Or or Rioja Alavesa, for instance. That's a main feature of our Manchuela soils, with their typical 'tuesca' (limestone substrata). I see it didn't impress you.
I am also at a loss to respond to the "modernity" argument. Maybe the wine should be a little dirtier? From hand-harvesting to fermentation with its own yeasts in small, open-top vats where we work with hand 'pigeage' and on to the very traditional oak aging, we don't do any high-tech stuff except to control fermentation temperatures, a very needed feature in hot places to avoid harsh, excessive extraction.
There are no real local traditions in this forlorn part of the world, except home-made wine for families in the old days, and for the past 50 years bulk wines made by large co-operatives. We have no Mascarello or Gouges role model. But we do have a vineyard tradition, very classic in warm parts of Europe from Bordeaux on down, of multiple grape varieties coexisting in the field and thus of blended wines. So we follow that, at least in spirit, growing or harvesting six different grape varieties (seven from 2011, as we'll harvest a 1.5-hectare plot of moravia agria for the first time), and blending them.
Even when in 2006 we began making the Signo wines, dedicated to the most important local grapes (there's a Signo Garnacha now in addition to Signo Bobal) we kept up this attitude (slight snobbishness, or stubbornness, OK) about blends: there's 10% syrah in Signo Bobal, 10% garnacha tintorera/alicante bouschet in Signo Garnacha. (Legally, they're varietals in the European Union with 85% or more of one variety.)
This blend mentality means that in general, with our wines, we try to convey the terroir as translated by the different varieties, not a variety per se. In Signo, of course, there's more of that varietal emphasis.
So, what's the bobal profile, you ask, complaining that it may have been masked by overripeness and/or oak. As I've explained, I sincerely believe these are not real factors. What is a factor is that bobal belongs to that group of grape varieties that can't be easily, in almost caricature form, recognized through some very defined aroma or flavor features. Those 'easies' would include cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, riesling, sauvignon blanc, garnacha/grenache, syrah... But then you have those others, like chenin, chardonnay or tempranillo, which are more adept at transmitting terroir and/or tertiary characters acquired with aging than at showing a telltale varietal style.
Bobal would be closer, in a modest way, to that second group: not so easy to pinpoint. It does have its very own features, of course: the tannins, which can indeed be spiky and a bit rustic when underripe, the dark fruit profile (blackcurrants, cherries, blackberries rather than blueberries, which are more a tempranillo feature), and the freshness. That's probably its most positive feature for a decidedly Mediterranean, warm climate grape.
In Spain, three varieties dominate, acreage-wise, its eastern, Mediterranean vineyards; they are, north to south, grenache, bobal and monastrell/mourvèdre. (Curiously, I think we're the only winery that makes all three.) I don't think you can make as complete, classy wines with bobal as with grenache or mourvèdre, which are really world-class (and indeed were planted very early on in many parts of the world). But neither grenache nor mourvèdre make wines that are as fresh, with good natural acidity, as bobal. Bobal is a little like cariñena/carignan in that sense, although quite different in style.
Sorry for the lengthy, boring reply. Well, if you have nothing better to do while waiting for Irene...
