The blend of the 2014 Reserva Santa Rosa has changed to include Monastrell, and in this vintage, it's 35% each Monastrell and Cabernet Sauvignon with 15% each of Merlot and Shiraz. This is the first time they have changed this wine in 25 years. The grapes are grown at their Chaconero estate vineyards in the village of Villena. The wine fermented at 28 degrees Celsius with short daily pump overs and a post fermentative maceration of 12 days. It matured in their cellars in Alfaz del Pi in new French oak barrels for 16 months. It felt more Mediterranean, very balsamic and super tasty in the palate, without any herbal aromas, round and juicy, with round tannins and balsamic flavors of thyme and rosemary. They hope to keep this new blend for the next 25 years! 30,000 bottles were filled in November 2016.

The 2012 Reserva Santa Rosa is a Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend with around 15% of Merlot and Shiraz from 28-year-old vineyards in their estate El Chaconero in Villena, which matured in new French barriques for some 17 months. The Cabernet Sauvignon has to be one of the oldest in Spain, the plants are nicely balanced and the wine shows it. This Bordeaux blend has a clear Mediterranean accent with its aromas of rockrose and thyme, a little earthy with a core of red and black fruit and some balsamic aromas of cigar ash and incense. The palate shows nicely balanced, with integrated oak (still al little too present for me) and a very tasty finish. This is a very balanced vintage of Santa Rosa. I also tasted an incredibly tasty 2001, all full of cold bonfire, singed leather, raw meat, pencil shavings and tea leaf aromas, and also a velvety and complex 1996 with great complexity, freshness and tantalizing aromas of decayed flowers. These wines age incredibly. Some 30,000 bottles were produced in 2012.

Quite an unusual blend for the Mediterranean region, the 2011 Reserva Santa Rosa is mainly Cabernet Sauvignon with 15% each of Merlot and Shiraz from the first family vineyards in Villena planted 28 years ago. They selected the bunches with the smallest grapes then fermented them destemmed but not crushed using indigenous yeasts. The wine matured in new French oak barrels for 16 months, a treatment that shows in the nose with plenty of toast, smoke, vanilla and cinnamon notes that hide the core of ripe red and black fruit underneath. The palate shows ripe flavors and the sophisticated, sleek tannins from the French grapes along with plenty of oak-related flavors that will need time to get better integrated. There is good fruit underneath, but today it's hidden by a thick slab of oak. Wait. 30,000 bottles produced.

The dense texture carries dark flavors of coffee, tobacco and game in this solid red. Muscular tannins support a core of plum and cassis. Austere but balanced. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Shiraz. Drink now through 2020. 375 cases made.??–TM??Region: Spain / Alicante Select to Add

The 2010 Reserva Santa Rosa, which was once their flagship wine, is a blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 15% Shiraz. It feels extremely young and marked by its elevage of 16 months in new oak barrels. Minty notes, medium-bodied, quite oaky, with some tannins that need polishing. Drink 2015-2020. Enrique Mendoza, a salesman in love with wine, started planting some vines in l’Alfas del Pi, very close to Benidorm, where his house and original business was located, in the 1960s. But it’s not until 1989 that his hobby was turned into a proper winery and Bodegas Enrique Mendoza were created. The Marina Baja area, close to the sea, is appropriate for growing Moscatel, but it’s not so good for red grapes, so he purchased a property inland, in the Vinalopo Valley, Finca Chaconero in Villena, where they have 80 hectares of vineyards. The focus was initially on French varieties (Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Petit Verdot and Shiraz), but in 2003 they started producing one of the best examples of Monastrell from the region, called Estrecho. Today Enrique’s sons, Pepe and Julian are at the helm of the company. They are so passionate about their vineyards (especially Pepe) and their wines that talking to them fills you with positive energy. The focus is clearly on viticulture, which to me is the right approach. They produce 350,000 bottles per year spread over a very wide range, which I find a little confusing, but I’m happy to see more and more attention being paid to Monastrell. I was especially impressed by (yet another) new wine called Las Quebradas. A few of their wines were reviewed last October in issue #203. Importer: Winebow Inc, Montvele, NJ; tel. (201) 445-0620