WTN: 2003 Montes Toscanini Grand Tannat Premium

After six days visiting the northern regional capitals of Belém do Pará and São Luis do Maranhão, where decent wine is in short supply, Marcia was tired of drinking caipirinhas made with exotic local fruits like cupuaçú, graviola, bacurí, taperebá, açaí, etc., so we looked for the least unpromising wine we could find to have with a cheese platter at the hotel. Since no bored is truly complete without a note on a Uruguayan tannat, here it is:

2003 Montes Toscanini Grand Tannat Premium 13.0%
100% Tannat. 03 was also a problematic vintage in Uruguay. Aromas of kirsch, molasses and coffee. Showing more heat than suggested by 13%. Acceptable acidity, but the fruit flavor tastes a bit baked and syrupy. Uruguay has no Andes, and I had hoped it wouldn't copy its neighbors, but the grapes appear to have been picked on the overripe side. Tannins are medium/soft, with none of the strength that give this grape its name. There's oak too, but not too much. Enfin, mediocre, should have sticked to the caipirinhas.

Since no bored is truly complete without a note on a Uruguayan tannat, here it is:

I guess it was semi-complete with my posted TN on Peruvian tannat last month ...

2008 Vina Tacama Seleccion Especial, Peru
A blend of Tannat and Petit Verdot. This bottle was given to me by Jun B., purchased when he took his family to a trip to Peru last month. A lot of things going on with the nose – earth, vegetables, herbs, ripe fruit. There’s that tannat harshness that greets the palate and which gave way to ripe black and blue fruit. Some bitter component, but the wine was still quite complementary to the selected take-out Chinese food, the ones that tasted bold and with lots of brown gravy. Showed green pepper notes at the finish … the wine not the Chinese food. Also went quite well with strong cheese, specifically Pyrenees Brebis. Not bad, as I wasn’t really expecting much. B

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=33214&p=280385&hilit=tannat&sid=ab67778235a7cde8718cf53e0728fbc5#p280385

Sounds a little tougher than mine, and I mean it in a good way!

Slightly surprised. The bottles of Tannat from Uruguay that I have had in the past have all been at least decent and most of them good to very good. It's been years and I don't take notes so not even sure if I have had one from Montes. However, I don't recall any of them being baked, syrupy, or overripe. What was 2003 like in Uruguay? If you had told me this was from Mandarian I would have just assumed it was vintage issues.

Slightly surprised. The bottles of Tannat from Uruguay that I have had in the past have all been at least decent and most of them good to very good. It's been years and I don't take notes so not even sure if I have had one from Montes. However, I don't recall any of them being baked, syrupy, or overripe. What was 2003 like in Uruguay? If you had told me this was from Mandarian I would have just assumed it was vintage issues.

My South American vintage chart gives 2003 in Uruguay a score of 6, when the scores for the last decade run from 6 to 10. But I don't know why it was low... Perhaps some wineries there began to imitate Chile and Argentina after a certain point, picking later, which I think also softens the tannins, and is not difficult when dealing with an early ripening variety like tannat.