Alpha Estate Xinomavro Hedgehog Vineyard 2019
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Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Bright purple-red color. Complex, typical bouquet of small berries red fruits, leather and spices (vanilla, pepper, clove), with hints of ripe blackberry. Full mouth, rounded tannins, balanced acidity and well integrated wood tones. Long aftertaste with intense quince aroma.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Gorgeous aromatics of pot pourri, wild strawberry and red cherry. Vibrant and bright with well-managed tannins, plenty of juicy and crunchy fruit and refreshing acidity.
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James Suckling
Pomegranate, wild red berries and flowers on the nose, following through to a juicy, medium-bodied palate with firm, dusty tannins. Very pristine and bright fruit profile, before a juicy, linear finish.
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Wine & Spirits
This has more to it than its super-friendly face initially lets on. Give it some air and flavors emerge from under that bright cherry-red fruit—some of xinomavro’s telltale tomato-leaf and lamb-fat notes, carried on a fine burr of tannins. Inviting and complex.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Xinomavro Hedgehog Vineyard was aged for 12 months in 50% new French barriques. It comes in at 14.02% alcohol. This feels a little delicate in the mid-palate, but it expands in the glass and coats the palate nicely eventually. Silky and bright, it has a fresh feel and a lively demeanor. The tannins are ripe here, not getting in the way too much, even with very young Xinomavro. The freshness is the biggest selling point. The acidity creates a juicy finish with the fruit lifted on the palate. This seems like a pretty nice Hedgehog this year. It should hold another decade or so, give or take. Xinomavro does not die easily.
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Alpha Estate is a winery located in the depths of Amyndeon's finest pastures. Alpha represents the "new beginning", the "birth" of a new era in the world of Greek wine. Makis Mavridis, a third generation skilled grapegrower, and Angelos Iatridis, the winemaker, educated in Bordeaux, trained in France, Italy and Greece and ''good father'' to many international well known Greek wines, planted a 65ha vineyard in the Amyndeon region in the late 1990's.
The creation of a privately owned estate vineyard was an enormous and pioneering investment at the time, which signalled the birth of pilot-structured vinicultural exploitation. Our on-going mission is to make wines that bring out the true characteristics of the region they originate from, wines that can reveal the characteristics of the soil, the climate and the typicity of the grape varieties they are made from.
Contribution of the human factor is indispensable to achieve our final goal, which is the production of grapes of the highest quality potential. The wines produced from such grapes are powerful and complex, displaying an intense fruity flavour and excellent balance. The company devotes a tremendous effort in improving the quality of its wines, through carefully planed investments and research programs, in collaboration with many research institutes. The success of these programs allows the company to evaluate permanently the quality and the character of its wine from one "vintage" to the next.
Awarded Wine & Spirits Top 100 Wineries of 2021.
Native to Greece, Xinomavro is widely regarded the finest red wine of the country. Its name literally means “acid black”, and attains fullest potential in the country’s northwest region of Naoussa. These single varietal bottlings of Xinomavro (blending is not allowed here) are often compared to the fine Barolos of Italy for their structure, finesse and age-worthiness. While its vines are fickle and blue-black grapes grow in tight clusters, similar to Nebbiolo, Xinomavro actually appears unrelated. Somm Secret—The use of French oak can help tame Xinomavro but too much can overwhelm it. Some eschew oak entirely during winemaking; other producers use locally-grown walnut.
As one of the few continental-climate, mountainous growing areas of Greece, Macedonia produces notable, high-quality red wines. Xinomavro is its star variety, capable of making a spicy and age-worthy red.