The Ciudad Real area of La Mancha produces some interesting wines; in particular there are some really interesting Syrahs and Tempranillos.  Many times the wines are really good value though prices are rising.  Typically these wines are easy drinking, glugable reds….high alcohol but with gobs of sweet attractive fruit.  The best can have some complexity and subtlety, with better equilibrium between fruit, alcohol, oak, and acidity.  The worse are out of balance:  too much alcohol, often over-ripe fruit and lacking acidity….or even worse over sharp acidity from enthusiastic acid rectification.   The wines of La Mancha are hot weather wines, big wines that often resemble new world wines from similarly hot regions.  They are big wines, even the most complex and elegant wines, and many of my Spanish wine tasters find them overwhelming.  On the other hand, many of my foreign groups love them!  I tend to drink them chilled with barbecues in the summer….when I first came to Spain I drank them more frequently at home, but I got a bit burned out and lately I’ve used them solely in tasting.  Always a region to re-visit as change and improvement is constant. 

This wine is the house wine of Dominio de Antargu, a restaurant and wine shop in Madrid.  While I was there buying some wine, they convinced me to give their signature wine a try.  I was bit taken aback by the price, but decided to take a bottle home.

Wine:  Da 2006
Winery:  Dominio de Antargu
Denominacion de Origen (DO): Vino de la Tierra de Castilla (La Mancha)
Alc: 14%
Grape varieties: 95% Syrah, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon
Oak regime:  The Syrah is aged 6 months in French oak while the Cabernet is aged 12 months in American oak
Price:  15€ retail in the Domino de Antargu store

Tasting notes
Visual:  Intense purple, opaque color
Nose:  Attractive and intense black fruit nose.  Not very complex but very appealing.   
Mouth:  The fruit is more subtle but still nice in the mouth, acidity ok….but very big tannins.  Medium length, tannic finish…the fruit does not linger. 
Food:  We had it with takeout Chinese…terrible, metallic…it was much better on its own after lunch.  It would have been good with the meatloaf I made last weekend.     

Conclusion: A good wine that got better as we drank it.  No major defaults, but it doesn’t have a very exciting personality.  It left me pretty indifferent…though it could have been the Chinese food!    Very similar in profile to many La Mancha wines, but is lacking the complexity of the best.  I would certainly include it in tastings as a typical, good La Mancha wine….but at 15€ it is way too expensive for this wine.  I would pay 10 euros max.