Review: Wines of Tempra Tantrum, 2009 Releases
It’s not a bad idea at its core: Take Spain’s national grape, tempranillo, and blend it with grapes that American consumers might actually know, and sell the concoctions as double-varietal bottlings.
Tempra Tantrum (get it?) takes cabernet sauvignon, merlot, grenache, and shiraz, and blends them in 40% concentrations with tempranillo (60%), in each of the four versions of this wine. All are from the 2008 vintage and hail from the Tierra de Castilla region of Spain.
And you know what: All four pretty much taste the same. Indeed, as vintner Rocio Osborne desired, these wines are all fruit forward and easy to drink, pleasant as all get-out with cherry notes and light herb character — but, to be honest, lacking much real character. In fact, tasting through all four varieties, I was hard pressed to find much difference among them. The cab blend might be a little chewier than the lighter merlot and grenache, and the shiraz has a touch of spicy raciness to it, but if you served this quartet blind, you’d be hard-pressed to pick out much of a difference.
For a $10 wine, they’re pretty high-quality and represent amazing values, but, on the whole, none of them are entirely memorable.
all varieties: B / $10
2009 Tempra Tantrum Cabernet Sauvignon
$10
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