TASTING NOTES REVIEW – Fortaleza Blanco (Lot 169) & a Comparative Tasting with Lost Lore Blanco (Lot 2)

Produced at NOM 1493 – Tequila Los Abuelos, the name of the brand as it’s sold in Mexico, Fortaleza blanco is made out of mature, 8-year-old Tequila Valley Blue Weber agaves that are cooked in stone/brick ovens (hornos) for 36 hours before having their sugars extracted with a 2-ton volcanic tahona stone wheel. The long cook time, which many other top-quality distilleries utilize as well, allows the starches in the agave plants to caramelize and release more sugars, which is key to making a great tasting tequila. After cooking, the agaves are allowed to cool for a full day before they can be handled by hand and removed by hand from the ovens.

According to the distillery, its allocated (in most places now in the U.S.) tequilas are produced the same way as they were 150 years ago by previous generations. The blanco, like Fortaleza’s other expressions, is open-air fermented in wood tanks using a special proprietary family yeast with no chemicals added to speed up the process. The agave sugars ferment for around four days before moving to distillation. The blanco is double distilled in copper pot stills that are over a century old. The blanco initially finishes at around 92 proof (46% ABV) and is cut down to 80 proof (40% ABV) using deep well water. The finished tequila is bottled in hand-made glass bottles with long, hand-made corks with agave piña caps.

This tasting notes review is based on over seven separate tasting sessions over three weeks using Riedel tequila flute an Glassique Cadeau tequila copita glasses. The aroma and flavor profiles remain largely unchanged from the bottle opening and were tasted both with and without resting and some aeration time in the glass with no major discernible change in either the aromas or flavors.

Fortaleza blanco – Lot 169 has a beautiful viscosity, coating the sides of the glass very well with legs/tears and leaving behind pearls on the sides of the glass.

On the nose, there is cooked agave with sweet baking spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, some cloves), a citrusy mix of lemon, lime, and lemongrass, grassy/vegetal/herbal notes of green pepper, olive, and dried herbs, light pepper, and an earthiness. On the palate, this lot has powerful, prominent sweet cooked agave and baking spices mixed with black pepper and that citrusy mix of flavors. There is an earthiness combining well with the herbal and vegetal notes that remain reminiscent of green peppers, dried herbs, olives, and anise, with a slight bitterness on the back palate. The deep well water and tahona stone impart a minerality with some salinity. Overall, this lot is a very good, harmonious mix of sweetness, earthiness, minerality, and some bitterness. The mouthfeel is buttery/creamy/oily with a medium finish.

Though you can certainly tell that it is a liquor, the alcohol taste isn’t very prominent on the sip or the swallow. The alcohol leaves a discernible but fairly gentle warmth on the palate and in the throat and upper chest after swallowing a sip. Indeed, it’s quite mild. Lot 169’s blanco is very much in line with the standard Fortaleza blanco flavor profile. The finish is medium to medium-long with the longest lasting flavors (lasting approximately 10-11 seconds) being the hint of sweetness, vegetal/herbal/grassy notes, some pepperiness, and a hint of the anise-like bitterness.

Comparing & Contrasting Lost Lore Blanco (Lot 2) & Fortaleza Blanco (Lot 169)

From the very first tasting session, Fortaleza Blanco’s flavor profile reminded me very much of Lost Lore Blanco’s. Both have a similar mix of cooked agave and baking spices with a fruity sweetness, vegetal/herbal/grassy notes (in particular, olives), and pepper. This reminiscence remains for me on subsequent, including side-by-side tasting comparisons, between the two blancos, both of which are current favorites of mine.

In short, for me both Fortaleza Blanco – Lot 169 and Lost Lore Blanco – Lot 2 have flavor profiles defined by a seamless marriage of sweet, cooked agave and baking spices, vegetal/herbal/grassy notes in which olive is prominent, tropical fruit notes, and an acidic-but-also-sweet citrus. Lost Lore is more forwardly peppery with stronger alcohol and anise notes (neither at unpleasant or unbalanced levels) whereas Fortaleza’s flavor profile is, in comparison, more subdued/understated. Both are high-quality sippers for lovers of blanco, with non-tequila drinkers I’ve shared it with also rating them highly.