Sweet night

In the placid gardens of the Mas Figueres rural hotel, the Dolça Nit (Sweet Night) took place. Ten wineries, mostly from DO Montsant and DOQ Priorat, gave us an opportunity to taste their sweet wines together with selected pastry and sweets. The deliciously cool night and live music added to the enjoyment.



Mas Figueres rural hotel



Celler El Masroig is the cooperative winery of the El Masroig village, DO Montsant, and is leaving the mediocrity of other coops producing some personal, high quality wines. In the sweet segment, their speciality are mistelas (mistelles, obtained adding alcohol to the unfermented must and later aging): Mistela Negra and Mistela Molt Vella (Very Old). Both come from Carinyena grapes, but while the former is just aged for one month, the latter is kept in a Solera system forty years old. Mistela Negra is a deep cherry colour, with a nose with red fruit and aromatic herb and refreshing acidity in mouth. The Molt Vella shows a more evolutioned orange tinge, with ripest fruits, chocolate, nuts, coffee, tobacco…in the nose. Sweet but balanced with acidity, very long. For me, one of the stars of the show.

Orto Vins, DO Montsant, is a new winery with vineyards in El Masroig and owned by four well-known winemakers, one of them Joan Asens, Alvaro Palacios’ oenologist. Dolç d’Orto Blanc is made mainly from Garnatxa blanca, left to dry for some time and then pressed and fermented. Citrus aromas, good integration, long. Dolç d’Orto Negre is a 100 % Garnatxa negra from individually selected berries. Dark cherry red, with lots of fruit (black, figs, all ripe). Fresh and long.

The Falset-Marçá cooperative winery from DO Montsant is another outstanding coop. Their wines Etim Verema Tardana Blanc and Negre come, respectively, from Garnatxa blanca and negra grapes of late harvest. Both wines are aged in oak for four and ten months. The white is fresh, with honey, citric and floral aromas. The red goes more for red and black fruit, cocoa, raisins. Dense and balanced in the mouth. Some of the best QPR in the night.

As a guest from a DO that also boasts excellent sweet wines, Mas Estela from Empordà displayed their Estela Solera and Moscatell. The Estela Solera is 100% Garnatxa negra, a late harvest coupled with a Solera system. Dark amber, with black fruit and the oxidative aromas typical of soleras, lighter than others in sweetness in the mouth. Estela Moscatell is 100 % Muscat, and shows the characteristic aroma profile of the grape. Balanced and long.



Costers del Siurana, one of the DOQ Priorat pioneers, contributed with their Dolç del Obac: 80 % Garnatxa negra, 10 % Cabernet Sauvignon and 10 % Syrah. Dark, complex, dense and powerful, but perhaps somewhat overpriced.

Mas d’en Gil (DOQ Priorat) offered their Nus, which means knot, named so because of its complex winemaking. Garnatxa negra, Syrah and a dash of Viognier, using three different winemaking methods, give as a result a wine with cherry colour and cherry aromas, plus orange, wood and minerality.

The Capçanes coop (more details in this older post) poured their Pansal del Calàs, a 70 % Garnatxa negra and 30 % Carinyena fortified at mid fermentation. Comparatively light, not too sweet, designed to pair even some meat dishes.

Pleret Blanc Dolç from DOQ Priorat Buil & Giné winery is a naturally sweet Garnatxa blanca, Macabeu and Pedro Ximénez white, aged in oak and with white and red fruit notes.

There were two wineries that offered non-commercial wines (although most of the other wines have productions well below 3’000 bottles). Cellers Capafons-Ossó had a very special Mas dels Masos, their flagship wine, from a vintage in which the adverse climate forced them not to produce the normal dry wine. Instead, they painstakingly selected the over mature berries that had survived and made a sweet red that they pour on very special occasions.

Mas Martinet presented a ranci dolç made with a very old solera system that they could save some years ago in one of the historic wineries of Priorat. It is not clear whether Sara Pérez, its oenological mother, will finally market it, but I do hope she does!

I really enjoyed this exhibition. Many wines, almost all of them coming from the same zone and from similar grapes, but very different outcomes, most of them with high quality. It is about time that quality sweet wines get a better recognition and are not considered as the lesser offshoot of the wineries.

http://www.builgine.com/index2.asp?lan=eng

http://www.cellercapcanes.com/

http://www.capafons-osso.com/eng/index_esp.html

http://www.costersdelsiurana.com/en/index.html

http://www.domontsant.com/en

http://www.doqpriorat.org/eng/index.php

http://www.masdengil.com/ang/index_main_menu.htm

http://www.masestela.com/entraGB.htm

http://www.masmartinet-ass.com/eng/index.html

http://www.cellermasroig.com/info.php?id=en
http://www.etim.cat/
http://www.doemporda.cat/en/home/action-actualitat.html
http://www.masfigueres.com/index_us.html



Ètnic 2006

Today I start a new kind of post, evaluating more in depth a wine I have recently tasted. There are some other blogs that usually take this approach with proficiency, such as Els vins que vaig tastant and Els vins del Bonviure (both in Catalan, but with automatic translator).

Here I face a typical dilemma, that recently came up in Els vins del Bonviure: shall I write negative reviews of wines? After thinking it out, my intention is not to do so unless I am sure that the flaws found are really present in most of the bottles and not a result of bad cellaring, my own clumsy tasting capability or simple bad luck. This means in practice that I should find similar problems in two independent bottles (not coming from the same source or stored in the same way) to make a negative report. A single unsatisfactory bottle will generate no remarks.

Another matter is a wine that, without actually showing flaws, does not deliver according to its fame or price. In these cases, with due allowance for my inexpert tasting, I may try to explain how and why I am disappointed.

Do you agree with this approach? Should I do otherwise? Please feel free to comment!

And now to the wine.

Ètnic is a red wine from DO Montsant. It is produced in the facilities of Celler el Masroig, following the directions of a group of people that includes some wine shop owners with no direct experience in winemaking. This 2006 is the first vintage. It comes from old Samsó (aka Carinyena) and Garnatxa vines. Curiously enough, the vineyards are actually sited in neighbouring DOQ Priorat soil. It was aged for fourteen months in French oak. Alcohol content of 14.5 % in a black Burgundy bottle.

The result is a very dark cherry red wine, with slow dark legs. In the nose, after some time in the glass (decanting is highly recommended), it opens to release black ripe fruit, balsamic wild herbs, hints of red fruit, chocolate, yoghourt.

Structure in mouth is big, with adequate acidity and notes of minerality. Tannins and alcohol are well integrated into a silky feel. Long finish.

At a retail price around 13 to 15 EUR in Catalonia, it gives good value. The trick is to find it, as production is very limited.

A wine to follow in coming years to see if it confirms the good start.

http://www.cellermasroig.com/?id=en&m

http://www.domontsant.com/

DO Montsant: up and coming

The DO Montsant was defined ten years ago as a solution to the issue posed by a number of villages (actually seventeen) encircling the prestigious DOQ Priorat yet included in the much less glamorous DO Tarragona. These villages had already a defined personality, recognized with a subzone denomination (Falset) but the quality differential with the rest of the Tarragona DO finally led to the creation of the DO Montsant.

Wine has been produced in the region since Roman times, but the monks of the Scala Dei priory gave a major push to winegrowing in the late Middle Ages. Phylloxera, as everywhere in Catalonia, all but destroyed the wine industry, but in Montsant the cooperative effort managed to bring back wine production to acceptable levels. Now some of these cooperatives, led by the example of Capçanes, are making significant strides in the race for quality. Many of the other wineries in the zone are small (perhaps 20’000 bottles per year), family owned and in the hands of young, enthusiastic people that have decided to remain in the country rather than depart for the big cities.

Montsant vineyards, between 200 and 700 m above sea level, present a wealth of microclimates due to the hilly terrain. Yearly rainfall is about 500 liters by square meter as an average, and concentrated on spring and autumn. Winters are cold, and summers hot and dry. In summer evenings wet sea breezes bring precious moisture that, combined with a big temperature difference between day and night, ensure optimal ripening of the grapes.

Soils are varied, with three main types:  

• Limestone rich compact soils 
• Sandy soils coming from granite decomposition; sited largely around Falset, the main town and seat of the DO Council 
• Slatey soils, known as llicorella, similar to those of Priorat.

The two last soil types have low content of organic matter and drain water extremely well, forcing vine roots to dig deep in search of moisture.

Altogether there are 2’000 hectares under vine, with an average production of 10 million kg of grape. Some fifty wineries are active. Evolution of sales since the establishment of the DO has been astonishing: in 2002 only 10 % of the wine was sold bottled; in 2008, 78 %, one third in Spain and two thirds in international markets, mainly Germany, France, UK and the US.

The range of grapes used are a mixture of traditional local varieties, often more than fifty years old and grown in bush form, and international varieties. For white wines Garnatxa blanca, Macabeu, Parellada, small-berry Moscatell, Pansal and Chardonnay are allowed. For reds Carinyena (aka Samsó), Garnatxa negra, Garnatxa peluda (hairy), Monastrell, Ull de Llebre, Picapoll negre, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah.

95 % of wine produced is red. Reds are usually dark and concentrated, while whites can be young and crisp or oak aged, with more structure and complexity. Fruity rosés are sourced largely from Garnatxa negra.

Noteworthy are the rancis and mistelas. Rancis are brown, nutty wines that undergo oxidization in the oak casks for years. Mistelas are produced adding alcohol to unfermented must and aging in oak, sometimes with sherry-like solera systems. These can be perfect wines for aperitif and dessert.

My favourite Montsant wineries: 

• Acustic Celler
• Celler de Capçanes  
• Celler Dosterras 
• Celler el Masroig 
• Joan d’Anguera 
• Coca i Fitó 
• Orto Vins 
• Portal del Montsant 
• Venus La Universal
• Vinyes Domènech

Some outstanding wines are produced in very small wineries (for instance, Espectacle) and some interesting producers only have one or two wines (as Laurona).

Many wines of Montsant exhibit two excellent attributes: personality and a great quality price ratio, as they have not (yet?) achieved the fame of their Priorat neighbors. This is a DO to watch closely.

http://www.domontsant.com/
http://www.acusticceller.com/
http://www.falsetmarca.com/eng/FRAMES.HTM
http://www.cellercapcanes.com/english.htm
http://www.dosterras.com/english/index.html
http://www.cellermasroig.com/?id=en&m
http://www.cellersjoandanguera.com/ing/index.htm
http://www.cocaifito.com/website_eng.html
http://www.portaldelpriorat.com/
http://www.vinyesdomenech.com/VD_2008/
http://www.cellerlaurona.com/celler.php?i=3
http://www.espectaclevins.com/default.asp?pag=230