Termes 2012 75cl

The eponymous 2012 Numanthia is sourced from vineyards ranging from 60 to 100 years of age across the Toro appellation (they have around 100 hectares of vineyards... spread across 100 separate plots!). The wine matured in brand new oak barrels for 22 months. The aromas are mostly oak related with some toasted sesame seeds, sweet vanilla and cinnamon, some licorice and chocolate, and a core of very ripe black fruit. The oak is obviously of very good quality, but at the moment it dominates the wine and with time what emerges is still toffee, smoke and coal. The palate reveals a very young wine that is dense, tremendous, with high dry extract, concentrated, powerful, and full of dusty tannins and oak-related flavors. This beast needs a good couple of years to be tamed down by the bottle. This is a bodybuilder of a Toro -- oaky and highly extracted in its style. The 2014 will see a change and will not have 100% new oak. 50,000 bottles. The new winemaker at Numanthia is Frenchmen Stephane Point who had worked at Chryseia in Douro, and more recently in the joint-venture he has with Bruno Prats (of Cos d'Estournell fame) in Alicante, Alfynal. The 2012s were already bottled when he arrived and he will bottle the 2013s soon; he is also implementing changes in the 2014s that were already in barrel when he started in March 2015. His first proper vintage will be 2015. I look forward to seeing what the new style will be, as I'm sure the wines will reflect the change.