Beautiful medium clear garnet out to thin pink edges.  Initial Euro gamey blows off into a steely, deeply fruited offering rich with cinnamon, cassis, nutmeg, cardamon–it’s practically a Christmas pie in a glass.  A little wet loam headed in the cardboard direction, but other than that and the initial nose, you could *almost* peg this for New World.  I could totally picture something like this being produced in Santa Barbara County.  It is quite fat.  It is quite alcoholic.  The brassy minerality and Root-Beer begs Foxen Canyon or Santa Maria Valley.  The extracted fruit heads more towards Santa Ynez proper, but let us not forget we are talking about a Jumilla.  I bring all this up not necessarily to compare New-World with Old-World, but because I purchased this in a wine-shop smack dab in the middle of *American-Palate-Central* and it was surrounded by an inventory heavy on… a focus of… let’s just say… “wines of an extraction and balance appealing to a section of the weekend populace heavy on maxi-skirts, pH, extraction and oak” and lacking in stupid minor stuff like acid and fruit.  So it stands to reason this doesn’t taste or smell like your run-of-the-mill Spaniard full of vegetal and barnyard and Moroccan armpit.  This is clean and dare-I-say ELEGANT?!?  It really could please a considerable range of preferences.  Definitely a crowd-pleaser.  It has a considerable helping of fruit in both bouquet and taste, and the mild tannins coax all of it far out into the finish.  But purists be warned:  It is concentrated and FIFTEEN-OH.  Despite this fact, I would be very curious to taste this in 5 years.  ♦