2012 Pintas
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Tasting notes
South-facing vineyard. Black core. Coal dust and deep dark fruit on the nose. Brilliant depth and fluid texture – it is intense but has a papery lightness across the palate. Graphite-like minerality. Leaves your mouth clean and dry and thirsting for more. Terrific finesse. (JH)
Critic scores
Average Score
Julia Harding MW, jancisrobinson.com
Mark Squires
More reviews and scores
The 2012 Pintas is an old vines field blend aged in French barriques for 20 months (60% new oak, 40% used). It was a little surprising early on, and not in a good way, opening a bit mute and seeming a bit slight. It gradually put on weight and evolved rather well. It shows surprising minerality for this bottling – not normally its strong suit – and a crisp, bright finish. It holds its oak rather well. Elegant and charming, it delivers beautiful flavor on the end, too. That surely is one of its typical strong suits. One of the more graceful Pintas bottlings you'll find, this is a wine you can actually drink, not just obsess over. It's quite a charmer. It won't be the most profound Pintas ever, but it will be one of the most popular crowd-pleasers for mid-term consumption. It should be accessible on the early side. There were 6,000 bottles produced, plus some large format bottles.