Bodegas El Nido Red Blend Jumilla Clio 2010

The nose opens with a delightful medley of floral, herbal, and fruity aromas. The palate is immediately spicy, rich and wide. A variety of herbs punctuates a flavor combo of coffee and cassis, with licorice, dark chocolate and ripe cranberry emerging to enrich the savory brew. Drinks well for 24 hours, integrating and evolving constantly, but interesting at any interval.

The nose opens with a delightful medley of floral, herbal, and fruity aromas. The palate is immediately spicy, rich and wide. A variety of herbs punctuates a flavor combo of coffee and cassis, with licorice, dark chocolate and ripe cranberry emerging to enrich the savory brew. Drinks well for 24 hours, integrating and evolving constantly, but interesting at any interval.

This is a complex, herbaceous wine that needs three to four hours of breathing in the bottle to reach its peak. At uncorking, one senses that the wine will integrate and evolve over time, but it is elegant from the first whiff. The harmonies are uniquely combined. Aromas include coffee, vanilla, tobacco, cherry, and an assortment of herbs and spices. The first taste delivers herbal warmth on the back, accompanied by the purest notes of cherry and oak in the center. Spicy fruit emerges to balance the vibrant array of flavors, and the wine begins to develop a set of opposites that add to the interest. Chewy but not heavy. Voluptuous and hedonistic but also subtle and balanced. Creamy but energetic. Powerful but also refined and complex. Pungent but also sweet. Both sappy and light. All these paradoxes are held in delightful tension. At an hour and a half, new aromas and tastes emerge, including a bit of coffee, and some vanilla. At two hours, the cherry high notes continue on the palate, joined by a fresh assortment of spices. At three hours, pepper and spice, coconut, licorice, leather, brilliant red and dark fruits, smoked meat, plus earthy, floral and herbal medleys are all going on. At 3 ½ hours, the flavors invade every nook and cranny of the palate and intermingle enchantingly while the tannins provide a textured background and cavernous structure for an expanding crescendo of tastes. The finish is long and savory, with plenty of spice and zing, along with a wide acidity and a nasal penetration like a mild wasabi. This wine displays best at 3 ½ to 4 ½ hours.

One of the best I have tasted. Great body, good legs and solid taste...

Surprisingly tannic at this age. Can stay in the bottle for a few more years, but like other reviewers 3 hours or more in the decanter releases some hidden treasures. If you are impatient do not hesitate to decant the wine, then shake it as hard as you can without spilling it out of the decanter. This approach while viewed by some as crude yields a rewarding short-cut to waiting for three hours.

Solid Spanish red,

I think I liked the bruiser that was the prior year better. Still, a very nice wine. Voluptuous lavendar, blueberry muffin and black currant. Inky purple in glass. Very rich. - Tasted at Marché Bacchus 1/23/10