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View from the Cellar |
The 2019 Don Daniel bottling is named in homage to Elías Mora’s father. The wine is made from a single vineyard of fifty year-old, organically-farmed bush vines of Tempranillo and the wine undergoes malolactic fermentation in French oak casks. It is given one year of elevage in the same barrels and the 2019 vintage here comes in at a full fifteen percent octane. The wine delivers a deep, complex and impressively vibrant nose of cassis, black raspberries, chocolate, a touch of cigar wrapper, dark soil tones and vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is deep, ripe and exceptionally well-balanced for its octane, with a sappy core of fruit, buried, chewy tannins and excellent focus and grip on the long and nascently complex finish. This is going to be an outstanding bottle of Toro with sufficient bottle age, but it will demand a bit of patience before it starts to drink with generosity.
John Gilman - Issue #103 - January/February 2023. |
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View from the Cellar |
Elías Mora’s Don Daniel cuvée is named in homage to his father. The wine is a single vineyard bottling, made from fifty year-old, organically-farmed bush vines of Tempranillo and the wine undergoes malolactic fermentation in French oak casks. The wine is raised in the same barrels for twelve months. The 2019 Don Daniel is once again a ripe wine, coming in at a full fifteen percent octane. The wine offers up a deep and complex nose of black cherries, sweet cassis, cigar wrapper, chocolate, dark soil tones and smoky new oak. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, focused and rock solid at the core, with a firm undercarriage of ripe tannins, fine grip, very good balance for its octane level and a long, complex and moderately warm finish. This is quite fresh for fifteen percent alcohol and is not particularly overripe in personality. It will need plenty of cellaring time to soften up its tannins, but seems likely to drink well once it has dropped some tannin. It will always be a big, powerful wine and show a bit of its alcohol, but there will be pleasure to had from this wine down the road. Though it comes in listed at the same fifteen percent alcohol as the 2020 version, I like the balance a hair better in the 2020 that I reviewed last year. 2034-2075.
John Gilman; Issue 109, January – February 2024 |
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Elias Mora Don Daniel 
