The tears!!

Of joy, that is. Some wines just pull at our heartstrings and make us want to wax poetic - or bust out a slam poetry freestyle.

It’s so hard to keep it together here.

A LEGENDARY wine, and our first time offering it. With 96 points and THREE 94 ratings from the pros! Our price! Forget about setting your fantasy lineup or going to that pickleball game you had planned. Grab some of this NOW and then come back.

Back? Ok, here’s the 411.

Enter Numanthia. A Spanish winery that gained MASSIVE attention and worldwide demand when Robert Parker lavished it with high praise and high scores 10 years ago.

Then came the announcement: “in February 2008 it was announced that the estate had been sold to LVMH. Winemaker Marcos Eguren agreed to stay on for two more vintages before he moved on to establish his own winery close by (see Teso la Monja.)”

And now, enter the REBIRTH of a legend.

Numanthia, out, Teso la Monja, IN. The race back up to the 100-pointers of the past is ON.

And back to Wine Advocate for the latest: “Teso la Monja is the name of the project of the Eguren family (San Vicente, Sierra Cantabria, Viñedos de Páganos) in Toro where they started Numanthia, which was later sold to a French group. They then resumed their activity in Toro with old vineyards… in their powerful style, ripe and round, generously oaked and with the character from the zone. The range is defined by the age of the vineyards used…”

Victorino, from vines back to 1920, hits the sweet spot of complexity with affordability, while the oldest ungrafted ancient vines, back to 1895, culminating in the Alabaster. We only got a few bottles of that one here on the Store.

It wafts from the glass with steamy raspberry pie and smoky Christmas spices. The first taste wraps your brain in a pretzel with layers of red, black, blue, and purple fruits. An exotic gourmet bazaar of aromas joins in, ranging from hinoki (woody citrusy evergreen) to tonka bean to smoked papyrus to charcuterie nuances. But it all orbits a massive core of intense dark fruit - think blackberry liqueur, spiced dates, and cherry cola. And then there’s the finish - long and sappy with ultrafine tannins. What a joyride!

Vinous adds “Toro doesn’t get anywhere near the attention afforded to neighboring Ribera del Duero, but its top wines - and this Bodega produces some of the very best - can be just as complex and equal in quality to Ribera’s most famous names. Established in 2007 by the Eguren family, of Rioja fame (Sierra Cantabria, etc.), Teso La Monja quickly earned a reputation for producing some of Toro’s most intense, deeply flavored wines, and the Egurens have never looked back. This is a no-expense spared operation and the wines show it, from the entry level on up.”

Look at those scores. Worth every bit of the original price, but UNDER $50 for such a collectible?!

Numanthia hit the #2 spot in Wine Spectator’s Top-100 before prices went haywire and allocations shrunk to mere bottles. Get in on the next cult Spanish gems before the masses wake up.

We urge you to take advantage of this one.

96 Points – Guía Peñín

“Intense cherry colored with aromas of ripe, black fruits, dried herbs, and creamy oak. Powerful on the palate with more ripe fruits, and spiced, ripe tannins.”

94 Points – Antonio Galloni’s Vinous

“Opaque violet. Expressive aromas of cherry liqueur, blackberry, vanilla, baking spices and dark chocolate, plus a smoky mineral flourish that adds vivacity. Sweet, chewy, and focused on the palate, offering intense black and blue fruit and licorice flavors and suggestions of candied violet, cola and mocha. Finishes with mounting tannins and strong persistence, leaving sappy blueberry and bitter chocolate notes behind. 100% new French oak. Drink 2023-2032.”

94 Points – Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate

“The 2018 Victorino is from a year with fewer bunches of larger grapes that resulted in very balanced wines, wines with good structure, ripe tannins and deep color. This was selected from ungrafted Tinta de Toro vines that fermented destemmed with their own selection of yeasts and matured in new French oak barrels for 20 months. Drink 2022-2030.”

94 Points – Wine Enthusiast

“Deep violet to the eye, this wine has a nose of blackberry, cherry cola and cinnamon. It is brighter on the palate than expected with flavors of cherry and pomegranate set into a frame of plush tannins with notes of toffee, salted almond, red apple peel, clove and ground coffee. There is a touch of spice on the lasting finish.”