Fortaleza 2025 Winter Blend Review: Reposado Reveal

BOTTLE DETAILS

• DISTILLER: Destileria La Fortaleza
• MASH BILL: 100% Weber Blue Agave
• AGE: 5 months
• YEAR: 2025
• PROOF: 92 (46% ABV)
• MSRP: $199.99
• BUY ONLINE: Not yet available

STEVE'S NOTES

SHARE WITH: Share with fans of Fortaleza first. There are many long-suffering tequila drinkers who've never had the chance to taste this, so show 'em some love. Also, share with knowledgeable tequila fans who will appreciate the subtle nuances of this highly sought-after reposado.

WORTH THE PRICE: This is always the toughest question in our reviews. I'm not a guy who routinely spends $200 on a bottle of tequila or other spirits. But the huge demand for this annual and highly limited release drives prices up so high that a $200 MSRP is considered a bargain if you can buy it for that. So, taking all of that into account, yes, it is worth the price.

BOTTLE, BAR OR BUST: Bottle if you can get it. Bar if the bottle was pretty recently opened. Ask the bartender about that. If it's been a few months and the liquid is down to a third, it could have flattened out some. But if it's drawn down that low in just a few weeks since opening, it will still be amazing.

OVERALL: In case you're wondering why there's no bottle shot in our headline photo, that's because the official Winter Blend '25 bottle wasn't made when I and a press, influencer and bartender group visited in August. And since Tequila Fortaleza is a small operation, there are no glam-glass photos taken to share with the press even once the release is ready.

But if you're curious about the photo that's there, that's Tequila Volcan in the background, the long-extinguished volcano after which Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico, is named.

This was my fourth trip to the pre-bottling press tasting of the annual Winter Blend release. Suffice it to say that it's a treat to go there. The expansive campus of Destileria La Fortaleza was beautifully curated over many decades in the 20th Century by the Sauza family. Ancient and massive cacti border a long, hand-hewn stone path which ends at a lookout point providing a stunning view of the agave fields, Tequila Volcan, the town of Tequila and the Sauza Erickson's family's estate home.

In past visits for the tasting, our group sampled each of several cask finishes that were blended to become the final product, which we also tasted. This year, however, came with a surprise. Billy Erickson, the brand's sales manager and son of Guillermo Erickson Sauza (who founded the distillery), told the group that we would choose one from three semi-final blends to be the 2025 Winter Blend (WB). Talk about a wow moment!

For the sake of brevity ... WB begins with 92 proof reposado tequila aged first in ex-American whiskey casks. In 2025, Erickson's choices of secondary casks were ex-Madeira French oak casks and Passito di Calluso (PdC) wine casks. The reposado was then aged separately in the ex-Madeira and ex-PdC casks, and then commingled in specific proportions of each. (It's a little more complex than I describe it here.)

If you're not familiar with Passito di Calluso wine, know that none of us had heard of it before this tasting. This is a rare Italian wine made in minuscule quantities from grapes left on the vine well past prime picking (about 5 months), then crushed and made into an intensely flavored wine.

The robust fruit character left in the wood by this wine stood out vividly. Not surprisingly, our group preferred–loudly, in fact–the one of our three options that best expressed the PdC. When we asked Erickson why he didn't just used PdC barrels only to really push WB '25s flavors into truly unique territory, he said he'd acquired just two barrels for this first try with them. "And we can't get enough cases out of just two barrels to come close to satisfying demand. ... I guess the answer for next year would be to start with more of those barrels."

One can only hope!

The annual tasting happens on a man-made island in the middle of the campus's water retention pond, which is a pleasant place to catch a cool breeze in the dry and warm Mexican high desert. But that breeze also makes it difficult to capture aroma notes, so what follows are notes taken in the weather-free confines of my home. Thankfully, everyone was sent home with a bottle to revisit for reviews.

On the nose is a battle between fruit and minerality, olfactory soldiers armed with aromatics derived from airborne yeast, cooked agave, tahona crushing and finishing in those ex-American whiskey, ex-PdC and ex-Madeira casks. Honestly, this combination is not as inviting and alluring as Fortaleza's Still Strength tequila, but there's nothing at all wrong with it. We don't buy tequila just to nose, we buy it to drink, right?

On the pond island and confined in crystal copitas, there was no problem tasting its vegetal, lemony and nutmeg notes. But over time in my office the wine flavors asserted themselves as invigorating tart notes of tamarind and sour cherry

As proven by my 2/3rds empty bottle, I've learned a bit about drinking it deliberately and with precision. (Tedious to some, such as my wife, I'm sure.) It's most expressive and spicy when I take a sip and hold it in my mouth for 5 seconds before swallowing it. The amount of fruit, spice and light acidity on hand is incredible and they all meld harmoniously. If you keep up that strategy, you'll find lightly spiced clover honey and a distant tingle of cayenne riding a wave of agave nectar that coats the mouth. Despite having no carbonation, it lingers like 7-Up on the palate, sweet and textured and warm when traveling down the throat.

To enjoy WB '25 fully, I recommend patience with this. Drink and share some pours to let the bottle open up on its own for a few weeks. Then lock it away if you have to, but stay away from it for a month. The depth, complexity and tart fruit that will develop is worth the wait.

If all you do is open this and crush it with your friends, good on you! It's your tequila; drink it as you please. But you're missing out on the best this can be. I'm all about sharing, but for this bottle, sip intentionally and slowly. You'll thank me for it.

Disclaimer: Bourbon & Banter received a sample of this product from the brand for review. We appreciate their willingness to allow us to review their products with no strings attached. Thank you.