Mouchão 2014

The 2014 Tinto, the regular estate bottling, is a 76/24 blend of Alicante Bouschet and Trincadeira. It was aged for 36 months in used 5,000-liter tonels of varying ages and comes in at 14% alcohol. It was then held back another 24 months. In this notoriously rainy vintage, Iain Richardson said the Alicante harvest was finished before the rains, but some of the Trincadeira was not. (Kudos for candor.) Of course, I haven't found this to be a great vintage, rain or no rain. This is an estate tinto that does very well in those contexts, but I don't see much evidence that it is a great tinto yet. It is a very nice one, though. Moderate in structure and in depth, it exceeds expectations by showing a good expression of its fruit. For the moment, let's be conservative in this wine's evaluation, but I'm not entirely convinced by this. This will be released in the fall.