Review: Compoveda Tequila Extra Anejo
SipTequila is an online tequila shop specializing in high-end bottlings, and recently it pulled a trick that not even the whiskey merchants are doing: It launched its own private label brand (not a barrel pick) called Compoveda. Compoveda exists solely as an extra anejo. It is crafted from 100% blue weber agave (source unknown), then aged for over five years in medium-charred, oak barrels that previously held Napa Valley red wines.
We received a small sample to check out this ultra-luxe bottling.
The red wine barrel aging immediately makes for a truly unique tequila, for better or worse. The nose has a clear edge of sweet rum raisin, apple cider, and cinnamon sticks, the vegetal, peppery note of the agave just underneath. It smells sweet, and it is sweet — even sweeter than you’d think based on the nose. The palate has the slick berry sweetness of a fortified wine, heavily raisiny, with some chocolate notes in the mix. A squeeze of citrus and an herbal underbelly are clear indications that you are, after all, drinking tequila and not some sort of bizarre Port, but there’s no mistaking how unusual and unique this tequila really is. Notes of pomegranate and mulling spices linger heavily on the finish, giving the tequila a distinctly holiday character as it wraps up.
Fun stuff — though it’s definitely a bit off the wall.
80 proof.
A- / $175 / siptequila.com [BUY IT NOW FROM TOTAL WINE]
Compoveda Tequila Extra Anejo
$175
Sounds great, but basically another marketing ploy. So far, I haven’t had better Extra Anejo than the tequila I age myself employing a pattern blend of French, American and Hungarian oak. Honestly, Compoveda sounds sort of like a board-room, composite, strange Franken-quila sporting an iteration that’s been around less than 20 years.