Best Sellers Wine

92 pts Vinous
Deep red-ruby. Generous, nicely focused aromas and flavors of red fruit, tar, licorice and underbrush. Showcases marvelous acid-fruit-tannin balance, fi nishing long, smooth and breezy. A knockout wine
and an exceptional buy for the money.

From Negroamaro grapes, with minor additions of Malvasia Nera and Montepulciano. Ruby red wine with garnet effects, intense, full, rich and ethereal scent with hints of blackberry, plum, Mediterranean vegetation, ripe fruit and leather; warm, rich and generous taste, with advanced and complex tones and flavors of almond and blackcurrant.

In the Apulian plain, in the center of the Salento peninsula, between the Ionian and the Adriatic sea, extends the territory of Copertino. On this red soil, vineyards and olive trees harmoniously alternate: century-old twisted trunks of olive trees often introduces the characteristic Apulian shrub-vines that produces this strong and generous wine.

In 1935, thirty-six vine growers founded the Cantina Sociale of Copertino, with the aim of improving the cooperation and the production of their own vineyards and the trade of their wine. Today the cooperative numbers 300 proud members who confer their own harvest. The vine cultivated area extends to around 300 hectares, and all wines are meticulously treated with wisdom, result of tradition and innovation, obtaining excellent wines, able to arouse enthusiasm.

Winemaker Notes:
Cabernet Sauvignon was the first wine Josh Cellars made. This is the wine that started it all, setting the exacting standards that they hold themselves to for all of their varietals. Round and juicy, our Cabernet Sauvignon has flavors of blackberry, toasted hazelnut and cinnamon.

REVIEW IS ON THE PREVIOUS VINTAGE.
93 pts Wine Advocate
I also tasted the following vintage, the 2018 Juan Gil (silver label), from a cooler and rainier, more continental vintage than the 2017 I tasted next to it. The origin is the same, Monastrell from their own old, non-irrigated vines fermented in stainless steel and matured in French oak barrels for around 12 months. This is the first vintage that is certified organic. There were some challenges, but they resulted in a fresh and balanced wine with integrated oak and a juicy and round palate. They have introduced optical sorting of the grapes, and perhaps that's why there is more precision and purity. They cannot do manual sorting at this price point, but optical sorting seems like a good alternative. 2018 is a more difficult vintage than the 2017, yet this wine is better, juicier and seems to absorb the oak better, with just a smoky touch that reminded me somehow of a Northern Rhone. Really impressive. 312,000 bottles. It was bottled in June 2020.

92 pts Wine Enthusiast Magazine
Concentrated and creamy but not overly showy, this wine is balanced, restrained and layered. It meshes an apple-tart flavor with subtle vanilla and nutmeg nuances while underlying acidity achieves excellent balance.nish.

"Intense black-cherry color with good depth of color and hardly any signs of evolution. Very expressive aromas on the nose with notes of liquorice, cinnamon and black pepper, with just a subtle hint of the long cask-aging, thanks to its great complexity and ripe, concentrated fruit. Fresh and easy to drink on the palate, good backbone and lovely, polished tannins. The long, persistent finish leaves gentle balsamic reminders of the finest quality." Winemaker notes

Marques de Riscal Reserva is made from mostly Tempranillo grapes, grown in the best clay-limestone soils of the Rioja Alavesa region. Riscal Reservas spend around two years in American-oak casks, producing a classic Rioja: fresh, fine and elegant.~Winery Notes

PJ Wine's Wine of the Year 2020!

92 pts Wine Advocate
The 2013 Señorío de P. Peciña Reserva has freshness and elegance and a lot of characteristics of traditional Rioja. 2013 was a challenging year, but it also provided good conditions to produce fresher wines. This was produced with a soft vinification, not too extractive or long, with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel and matured in used American oak barrels for three years with rackings every six months. It has the telltale aromas of spices and balsam (cigar ash, incense), wet forest floor and wild berries. The palate is sleek and polished, with resolved tannins and good acidity. It should drink nicely for a good five years and stay on a plateau of maturity for longer. 42,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in December 2017.

Every year we amass some of our favorite wines for our Wine of the Year blind tasting. We taste wines from the past year that have impressed us and also really over-delivered for their respective price point. We place them in brown paper bags to remove any bias and we taste. This year we had fifty wines as contender for our Wine of the Year, but only one can come out on top, and this is it!

The 2013 vintage of Senorio De P. Pecina’s Reserva Rioja is stunning, showing all the classic notes of Rioja - dill, dried fruits, spice and supple tannins. We love this producer, so when we pulled the bottle out of that brown bag we were elated but not surprised.

For fans of the traditional style Rioja, there are only a handful of estates you can turn to: Lopez, La Rioja Alta, CVNE, Muga etc., you can add one more bodega to the list, Senorio de P. Pecina. Folks, this is the real deal. Pure tempranillo fruit, American oak, barrel and bottle aging, and select harvests. This 2013 Reserva is a must-have for Rioja drinkers, to enjoy now and cellar for the long haul.

Bodegas Hermanos de Pecina is firmly planted in the old school camp. Although the estate was started only in 1992, its founder, Pedro Pecina had worked for over 20 years prior to that as the head agronomist for La Rioja Alta, learning all facets of production and especially the planting and managing of all the estate’s vineyards.

The estate comprises of 50 hectares, which is fairly small by Rioja standards. The vineyards are farmed in a natural and sustainable manner. Harvest is done by hand, and the wines are all de-stemmed and then fermented by individual parcels using indigenous yeasts. After fermentation, the wines are transferred to 100% used American oak for aging. They are then racked every 6 months, one of only a few houses that still do the traditional trasiego method by hand. Like the best of the traditionalists, the aging regime in both cask and bottle are well beyond what is required by law.