Termanthia 2015, the most elegant wine from Bodega Numanthia

At Bodega Numanthia, owned by the large luxury group Louis Vuitton Moët Henessy, they have changed course, refining and perfecting their style. Today, at the gates of its 25th anniversary, they are betting more on fruit and less on large extractions and the impact of aging in wood. They speak of “infusion” instead of extraction. All this with the aim of producing wines “that can be enjoyed beforehand”. They say that “we don’t want to be Burgundy, but we do want to be more elegant”.

With these premises, its most iconic wine is now coming to the market, the 2015 vintage of its Termanthia (DO Toro). They say it is their “treasure”. They even have, on request, a barrel made of French oak and lined with the iconic calf leather from the luxury fashion house, specialist in leather goods Loewe. Termanthia 2015 was produced by the Portuguese winemaker Manuel Louzada, currently in charge of the great Chilean wine Alma Viva. Since July 2018, the manchego winemaker Jesús Jiménez has held the position of technical director.

The 2015 vintage was characterized by ripe red fruit and the special freshness that this vintage offered. The vines coped with the high temperatures of June, July and August thanks to the reserve of water in the subsoil from a rainy spring and a couple of summer storms that contributed to keeping the humidity available to the vines and maintaining a good level of acidity. .

This great red is the result of impressive old Toro tinta glass vineyards (tempranillo), planted more than 120 years ago. There are only 980 vines per hectare, which produce a meager 1,300 kilos per hectare. They practice ecological agricultural management (they have never used pesticides or herbicides) and without irrigation. They have up to eight different types of terroir. The harvest, in boxes, is exclusively manual, “with a rigorous selection of the bunches in perfect condition and at their optimal moment of maturity.” They carry out a triple triage of the grapes: in the vineyard, on a selection table in the winery and an optical selection.

handmade process

They carry out a triple triage of the grapes: in the vineyard, on a selection table in the winery and an optical selection

After destemming, a cold pre-fermentative maceration was carried out for five days. Alcoholic fermentation took place in two 10 hl French oak frustoconical tanks and two more 20 hl tanks. Treading was also practiced twice a day during the first days of maceration. The maceration with the skins lasted about nine days. Malolactic fermentation took place in fine-grained French oak barrels. The aging in wood was 22 months, 80% new barrels and 20% second-use barrels. The transfers were carried out every four months. It was bottled in June 2017.

It is a luxury wine suitable for vegans, since it does not contain any products of animal origin. Bodega Numanthia ensures that it is the result of artisanal production and a “haute couture” style.

termanthia 2015

Numanthia Winery

DO Toro
Grapes: Tinta de Toro
Price: 225.85 euros

Well covered and picota cherry color. Termanthia 2015 is a stately and corpulent red that stands out for its perfumed nose (violets) and for its fluidity, despite its outstanding tannin content. It is very wide. It exhibits concentrated black (and some red) fruit, and notes of scrubland, such as those reminiscent of rosemary, but also of eucalyptus. At the same time, hints of coffee, chocolate, licorice, Cuban tobacco leaf, cedar and cabinetmaking appear. With a long and fresh finish. It does not hide its 15.65º of alcohol, although it is a wine with great balance thanks to its good acidity (5.50 grams per liter expressed in tartaric). Volume with elegance in a wine with a long journey ahead seven years after its vintage.

From the winery it is recommended to accompany it with proposals such as foie mi-cuit with warm fruit and PX reduction, with a roast lamb from Peñafiel with crunchy herbs or, for dessert, with pure dark chocolate truffle. The technical director of the winery likes to pair this wine with a woodcock with a tasty wine sauce. And the head of global marketing for Moët Hennessy, Martin Derrier, prefers to harmonize with the Wellington pigeon with boletus of the Barcelona restaurant Via Veneto. It is recommended to serve between 14 and 15º C.

The head of global marketing for Moët Hennessy highlights the great potential with centuries-old pre-phylloxera vines planted in the stony and sandy soils of Bodega Numanthia. It is his largest treasury. The project is billed as “the renowned guardian of a unique Spanish wine heritage”. They add that they are dedicated to making “wines that genuinely reflect the generosity of these hundred-year-old vineyards”. They are wines “of rare texture, vitality and beauty”. From Bodega Numanthia it is stated that they are born from “a history of resistance” and as a living tribute to the ancient city of Numancia, whose inhabitants chose death rather than surrender before the Roman invasion.

Pairing

The technical director of the winery likes to drink this wine with a woodcock with sauce

The estate’s Tinta de Toro vineyards are among the oldest in the world. They are between 30 and 200 years old. There are 200 hectares of vineyards (the average is one hectare), of which 85% are owned in the towns of Toro, Morales de Toro, Valdefinjas, Venialbo, El Pego and Argujillo. They say that their strains “embody tenacity, they are capable of resisting the harshest winters and the sweltering heat of the hottest summers.” A climate referred to as “nine months of winter and three of hell.”

Bodega Numanthia was founded in 1998 by the Eguren winemaking family from La Rioja in Valdefinjas (Zamora). Louis Vuitton-Moët Hennessy acquired this Toresan boutique winery in 2008. They want to become a benchmark for Toro and be recognized worldwide “among the jewels of Spanish wine”. They are participating in a biodiversity project with the NGO Grefa (a group for the rehabilitation of native fauna and its habitat), they want to contribute to the reforestation of the DO Toro (they have planted 2,500 pines and holm oaks this winter and have recovered species of native flora that disappeared in the area), they installed solar panels on the roof of the winery capable of producing practically all the electricity they need and carry out wastewater treatment with an internal purification station.

The codes that appear on each of its bottles represent objects found during the archaeological excavation of the Numancia site. The name of these Castilla y León wines (Termes, Numanthia and Termanthia) refers to three of the nearby Celtiberian cities that are part of the history of Numancia.

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