Color:
Deeeep ruby color, can even use the term inky; beautiful!
Nose:
LUSCIOUS nose of fruit (cherries predominate), oak, beautiful vanilla, burnt-sugar. This wine has a wonderful nose, very deep. Saddle-leather, tobacco, graphite, hot 1970's American car seats, mocha and play-doh (hey, that's what I smell!).
Palate:
Bold yet elegant. Silky tannins that follow-through very nicely to the mid-palate where a nice mature grandfather's leather tobacco-pouch offers its essence on the way to a relatively smooth, satisfying finish that trails off for quite some time. A little hot on the alcohol, perhaps, but I don't really mind this. To me it's interesting that the tannins don't settle in the bottom lip/lower jaw but stay high in the mouth and congregate so close to the acidity in the mid-palate as to believe that these tannins want that acidity, yes, in that way! Perhaps this is what tannic/acidic balance is, but BOLDER than the Neal Family Cabernet Sauvignon that we really liked. This wine is a most-definite teeth stainer, so be careful if "out among the English!" The tastes in this wine are as divine as the nose with beautiful dark cherries topped with pure vanilla extract, brown sugar, and that whole concoction left to mature in a leather tobacco pouch with some oak chips in it. This is one wine for you, the reader, to buy and try. These Spanish wines are simply a great value. I know $20 may be a lot for some people, but do yourself a favor and go out and find this wine and see what you think. It's worth every penny!
(Click here for an explanation of our ratings ...)
Our Rating: 93+
Would we drink it again? 
Yes, absolutely!
Would we buy it again?
Yes! Winelibrary recently featured this wine as a "Free Shipping Item" and I bought one; I had already purchased a bottle with a previous case but had not tried it yet, so I only bought one with the free shipping, and now I am very sorry that I didn't buy more!
Jay Miller's Notes
"This is the first vintage for this pair of wines from Bodegas Victoria, a project of Juan Manuel Segura, the winery proprietor, and Miguel Angel de Gregorio, owner-winemaker of the highly regarded Rioja estate, Finca Allende. The 2004 Dominio de Longaz is 80% Tempranillo and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon aged for 12 months in new French oak. It is similarly styled compared to its younger sibling but with more obvious oak, richer flavors and a slightly longer finish. It merits 2-3 years of cellaring and should drink well through 2017." JM-90
Gary Vaynerchuk's Notes
"COLOR-really dark; NOSE-cherry vanilla extract; TASTE-New World Fruit Bomb (but a Good one - the way I like it), exceptionally well made, vanilla, Bark smoked Cedar Box, hint of leather, covered by a stack of strawberries" GV-92+
Our 72-hectare estate is situated in "La Pardina", in the Cariñena fields, at 550 metres above sea level, in a plain shut off from the southwest and predominated by the backdrop of the Algairén Sierra.
With reddish-brown limestone soils above calcium carbonate and clay loose-rock sub-soils, it is ideal for retaining rain water.
The continental climate, with extreme contrasts in temperature, make it a perfect "terroir" for growing grapes with intense flavour.
We cultivate the following varieties: tempranillo, syrah, cabernet sauvignon and merlot, with a plantation density of 3,500 vines per hectare, in doublecordon trellises.
About the Cariñena Region
Cariñena is both a grape variety and a wine region, where, ironically, the grape variety does not dominate; instead it is the Garnacha. The DO is next to, and east of Calatayud, and was famous for two things: the natural very high-strength wines that were widely used for blending both in and outside Spain; and the village of Puentetodos,
the birthplace of Goya.
Cariñena has been the most high profile of all of Aragons DO zones, perhaps because it has been around the longest. The zone was first demarcated in 1932 and received its official denominacion de origen documentation in 1960.
Cariñena today produces excellent, full-bodied tinto’s for which the region is justly renowned.
The Romans, as ever in this part of Spain, were the first to organize winemaking on a commercial level, but Cariñena had its own
regulations in place as early as 1696. It was also one of the first wine-producing regions in Spain to have its borders delimited.
The vineyards spread upwards from the flood-plain of the river Ebro into the mountains of the Sistema Iberica at
altitudes between 400 and 800 metres. Soils are good for vines, being comprised of limestone, a little chalk with some slate and alluvial deposits at the lower levels. The climate produces long hot summers and even longer autumns. Rainfall is relatively low at 300-350 millimetres, so yields are not likely to be high.
Garnacha accounts for 55% of the tinto grape varieties grown, with Tempranillo at 15% and Cariñena at 6%. For blanco’s the main variety is Macabeo, which accounts for 20% of the vineyard.
Cariñena produces some of the best wines in Aragon, and are usually given pride of place in many of the region’s restaurants. They are served alongside Migas, which is a dish of fried breadcrumbs and leftovers (bits of ham and cheese, but also fish, vegetables etc.). Roast lamb, kid and suckling-pig, which is the standard cuisine of northern Spain, are prominent menu items, and beef is often served raw alongside a plate of baked rock-salt to allow diners to cook it the way they want.
