The wine tasting at The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan was getting plenty of attention about the Spanish wines being offered, including a twenty-one and a twenty-five-year-old wines being poured.  

We started the next part of the tasting with Bodegas Urbina Seleccion Rioja DOCa 2000.  Bodegas Urbina has been in Cuzcurrita del Rio Tiron for over one hundred fifty years, when they started in 1870.  Urbina started making wine with vineyards still being used today, and the famed Rioja Alta district and their prized singular Vale del Angel Vineyard.  This wine is pure Tempranillo from select plots on limestone and sand; fermentation was started with indigenous yeasts; it was aged in a mix of French and American oak for sixteen months plus fifteen or more years in Stainless-Steel before bottling.  Organically grown fruit from vines that are over fifty years of age.  The deep ruby colored wine offered notes of black cherry, blackberry, violets, spices, tobacco, gravel and sous-bois.  On the palate this full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of silky fresh fruit, lively acidity blending with gentle tannins and ended with a long-count finish of fruit and terroir.

Our next wine was Bodegas Urbina Gran Reserva Especial Rioja DOCa 2004.  Bodegas Urbina was founded in 1870 and today their annual production is fifty-thousand bottles of wine, and they have the capacity to store their wines, until they feel the wines are ready to be enjoyed.  They have seventy hectares, and the winery is run by the fourth generation in the Rioja Alta district.  This winery is noted for releasing mature wines which don’t require additional cellar time for the consumer.  This wine is made from their best Tempranillo gapes, with a dash of Graciano and Mazuelo blended in as well.  They use organic fertilizers, indigenous yeasts and avoid weedkillers and pesticides. The grapes for this wine are manually harvested from forty-plus-year-old vines.  The wine undergoes Initial Fermentation in Stainless steel, then the wine is aged for twenty-four months in a mix of seventy-five percent American Oak and twenty-five percent French Oak for twenty-four months.  The wine is then aged in Stainless-Steel and finally bottled and stored for up to four years before release.  The release is determined by the winemakers, and not according to a preset calendar.  This deep ruby colored wine offered notes of black fruit, violets, spices, truffles, leather and minerals (sous-bois).  On the palate this full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of black cherry, black currants, some smokiness, bright acidity blending with savory and smooth tannins and finally ending with a long-count finish of fruit and terroir.

The next wine was from another region of Spain, and we tasted Dominio de Pingus “PSI” Red Ribera del Duero 2022.  The estate was founded by Peter Sisseck, a Danish oenologist who was previously in Bordeaux and the first vintage was in 1995 and developed a “cult-status” from the initial reviews of Robert Parker.  The estate consists of several small parcels of old vines in various plots of vines that are at least sixty-five years of age on terrain that is either gravel and sand over chalk or mostly clay with very small yields of fruit. The “PSI” is more of a classic interpretation of Tempranillo from Ribero del Duero, and the grapes are from selected local growers who must implement biodynamic vineyard techniques and are paid similar in structure to a cooperative.  The wine is named after the 23^rd letter of the Greek alphabet and a new winery was created in 2007 just for this label.  The wine is made from Tinto Fino or Tinta del Pais, a local variant of Tempranillo and ten percent Grenache from selected plots in twenty-one different villages.  The wine undergoes a long and gentle maceration for extended extraction. The wine is then aged in concrete tanks and used oak barrels for eighteen months.  The deep ruby colored wine offered notes of cherries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, licorice and spices.  On the palate this full-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of black cherry, pomegranate along with good acidity, blending with tones of leather, spices, and fine tannins ending with a long-count finish of fruit and terroir.