The rare 2012 Teso la Monja was cropped from a year with cold nights and warm days, and is always produced with the grapes from a small plot of 1.8 hectares planted with ancient vines on soils that have more limestone than other vineyards in the zone. The hand-picked grapes were hand-destemmed by a team of 50 people on September 15 and put to ferment in an open-top oak vat, and some 35% to 45% of the grapes were manually punched down. Malolactic was carried out in an egg-shaped oak vat from Taransaud and the wine saw two years in French oak barrels. This is more concentrated, more extracted and with noticeably more oak. We need to realize that this is also a warmer and riper vintage, which clearly comes through when I tasted this next to wines from much cooler vintages like 2014, and especially 2013. There is a stronger imprint from the oak in this wine compared with the others, with plenty of smoky notes and sweet spices, and also higher alcohol (15.2%) from an extremely dry vintage that extracts more aromatic compounds from the barrel; when you have slightly lower alcohol and more acidity—or freshness—the wine seems to integrate the effect of the élevage in a better way. This is more in the style of the wines from the 1990s, with more of everything, but to me a little too much oak. The oak seems to have provided abundant, dusty tannins that give it a dryness in the palate that can lead to a sensation of rusticity and less finesse than the other wines. Very good in its style, but sometimes less is more. This clearly needs more time in bottle. Only 89 bottles were filled with the 2012 vintage.
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