Intense (adj) •• possessing or displaying a distinctive feature to an extreme degree; extreme in degree, strength, or size.
These are the biggest, boldest wines in our store. They demand attention and reward you with the fullest measure of flavor available from the grapes used to make the wine. These are the wines that sometimes can use a little taming by letting them sit on your cellar shelf for a few years. They can work well with some foods, but the food has to be big enough to stand up to the wine. They need a big hunk of red meat, such as a nice prime rib, maybe from a bison, to really shine. These are also wines that you can sit around and sip a glass with a friend, with no food in reach, just a good topic for a conversation. Below are some examples of our intense wines.
The wine is named for a Francisco Goya painting, but the winery, Orin Swift, is named for the owner's parents. Orin is his father's middle name, Swift is his mother's maiden name. The owner/winemaker is Dave Phinney and he was introduced to wine through a roommate while in college. Thankfully, that experience made him forget about being a lawyer and he started by getting any job he could at any winery in California. His first job was working the crush at Mondavi, and he has progressed to owning an award winning winery in Napa.
Australia has a reputation for producing full-throttled shiraz wines. Here the shiraz has been blended with some cabernet to bring it under a bit of control. The wines that were blended came from three different areas in Australia, with each being made in a manner that suited those particular grapes. The final blend is a full vibrant wine, deep red in color, and lots of blue and black fruit on the tongue. While you could cellar this for a few years, most people will only cellar it for a few hours or days.
This wine comes from the Jumilla region of Spain, which is near the Mediterranean coast. The grapes are called monastrell, which is the Spanish name for mourvedre. This is an estate grown and bottled wine and the vines that supplied the grapes are about 45 years old and grow in limestone soil with poor nutrients. Great for growing intense grapes, terrible for just about anything else. The wine is very dark in color, full of berry and spice in flavor, and a very nice, long finish.