Familia Sanchez Tempranillo Blend

I stopped by Wild Oats after dinner last night to pick up some dessert to go.  I found some awesome looking chocolate chunk brownies and on the way home was thinking “I need to open a nice bottle of red to enjoy with these.”  So I got home and reviewed the selections on hand – as well as the priorities for Cheap Wine Ratings posts – and pulled Familia Sanchez 2005 Tempranillo and Syrah from the rack.

After all this anticipation, I was utterly disappointed.  The brownies where good, but the wine… not so much.  I would call this another Trader Joe’s dud.  (I’ll save my “rant on Trader Joe’s” for another time.)

The nose on this wine is much more interesting and enjoyable than the palate.  It has a complex floral, fruity, alcohol-y nose.  In fact, the aromas were just teasing and making me excited about tasting this wine. 

And then, thud… the taste is short on fruit and off-balance with heavy tannins. The finish is very long, but that length featured bitter tannins and weak, uninteresting fruit.

Just for the record, I did taste this wine before diving into the delicious brownies.  So my palate was not skewed by the delectable chocolate-y sweetness.  The brownies were moist, and full of big chunks of chocolate.  They get a big thumbs up and I have to give a shout out to Dancing Deer Baking Company for creating them.  Yummy!

Wine: Famila Sanchez
Varietal: Tempranillo & Syrah Blend
Alcohol: 13.5% 
Rating: 76