Luna Rossa Winery- Nini 2004

During our radio appearance Saturday morning, we had a caller that asked us about a wine from Luna Rossa Winery called “The Conquistador”, which is a Port style wine. We haven’t tried the Conquistador, but his question sparked the memory of having a bottle of ‘Nini” in our collection at home.

For those of you who don’t know about Luna Rossa, it is a family run vineyard and winery in Deming, NM. They produce all of their own grapes, and supply wineries throughout New Mexico and Texas with the excess fruit. For more information on Luna Rossa Winery, visit http://www.lunarossawinery.com.

In 2004 Luna Rossa made an Italian Style blend from five different grapes, then aged the juice for 24 months in oak, which resulted in Nini. The grapes used in this interesting blend were Dolcetto, Nebiolo, Barbera, Sangiovese, and Refosco. This wine went on to a Gold medal in an International competition.

Now, for our experience with the 2004 Nini. As we said before, the Conquistador question came as a reminder that we have been meaning to taste, and enjoy our bottle of Nini.

The color of this Italian blend falls somewhere in between cherry and garnet, and holds that color right out to the edge. It gives off red cherry, vanilla, strawberry, and vegetal aromas on the nose which we found get more pronounced as the wine opens.

Nini carries a tart acidity with almost bitter tannins, and sufficient alcohol. The in mouth flavors are pleasant and as with the nose, change as the wine opens. We were getting strawberry, vanilla, cherry, a touch of citrus, mild vegetal notes, and bit of cocoa towards the end. The finish isn’t terribly long, but lengthy enough to slowly enjoy this bottle.

We are impressed with this wine, and through technical evaluation award it with a very sound 89 points.

For El Pasoans, the closest place you can pick a bottle of this up is in Mesilla, but we highly recommend stopping in at the tasting room in Deming which is right off of I-10 east. Cheers!