Lo Jaume’s wines

Jaume Balaguer (Lo Jaume, The Jaume (James) in Western Catalan parlance) is a many faceted man. He runs Bonviure, a wine and delicatessen shop in Gratallops (Priorat), and Celler Balaguer Cabré, a boutique winery in the same village; helps in Piró, the family restaurant; and sells to restaurants and wine shops wines from a number of small Catalan wineries. Apart from these trifling tasks, he writes a blog and is great in proposing wine-food pairings. What he does in his spare time, such as it may be, is something I have never dared to ask him.

It is about this last capacity that I wanted to tell you about. After the Tast amb Llops, my wife and I attended a pairing in his restaurant. By (lucky) chance, a few days later I enjoyed a similar occasion in a restaurant in Barcelona. That will come in my next post, to allow proper labelling of wines tasted.

Piró is a restaurant serving mainly typical Catalan food. As you know, I do not comment on a restaurant’s food unless I am disappointed. This was not the case.

The wines we tasted were the following:

Les Brugueres 2009 is a 100% Garnatxa blanca white from La Conreria de Scala Dei, DOQ Priorat, with a light golden yellow colour. Intense in the nose, with white fruit notes. Well structured in the mouth, with good acidity, and very long.

Humilitat 2008 is a red coupage of Garnatxa and Carinyena, produced by vino, amor y fantasia. Medium bodied, with lighter colour and spicy nose, its winemakers claim to have produced “the Burgundy of Priorat”. Quite true, although not a Grand Cru.

Trio Infernal 1/3 2007 is a Priorat red from 60% Garnatxa and 40 % Carinyena by Trio Infernal. Black fruit, complex nose, powerful but fine tannins.

Petit Gènesi 2009, Garnatxa, Carinyena and Syrah coming from the Vermunver winery in DO Montsant. With six months in different oaks, the nose points to black fruit and balsamic notes. Fresh in the mouth, with adequate structure.

Last but not least, La Guinardera 2006 is a 100% Garnatxa from Celler Balaguer Cabré, owned by Lo Jaume. This is no nepotism; La Guinardera is an elegant, medium bodied wine that comes from the property of the same name, an old vine plot that receives sunshine the whole day. Red fruit in the nose, with tobacco notes. Silky and long.

A perfect end for a day that included the visit to the Falset Wine Exhibition and the Tast amb Llops. Ten days later I was to have another pairing with Lo Jaume; and I was indeed looking forward to it.

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

http://www.domontsant.com/

http://bonviure.blogspot.com/

http://www.scaladei.org/

http://www.vinoamoryfantasia.com/

http://www.vermunver-genesi.cat/en/qui_som

http://www.trioinfernal.es/ 

http://cellerbalaguercabre.blogspot.com/

Scratching the wolf: Tast amb Llops

In a previous post I already commented on the fact that Catalan villages with wolves in their names tend to produce excellent wine. This time we will speak about Gratallops.

 

Philologists tell us that Gratallops means the place where wolves sing, but the straightforward translation of the name from Catalan would be scratch wolves.

 

Gratallops was the original place where the five Priorat pioneers set up their wineries and still now are producing their wines, solidly installed among the best in Priorat.

 

In these surroundings the hotel Cal Llop (Wolf House) hosts the Tast amb Llops, Tasting with Wolves. No actual animals around, but rather nine of the twenty-odd wineries active in Gratallops (not bad for a village with 260 people), plus four from other Priorat villages, and a guest from the Rhône valley, Maison Tardieu-Laurent.

 

In the very pleasant plaza in front of the hotel, in a cool afternoon (in many ways), with music and some tasty tapas on offer, I was able to taste and chat, and discover or find again several treasures. These were the wines I enjoyed most:

• Celler Alvaro Palacios, the winery of one of the five pioneers, with their Alvaro Palacios Gratallops Vi de Vila (village wine, a concept resembling the parallel in Burgundy, and now being introduced in many of Priorat villages).
• Celler Clos Mogador, with Rene Barbier, another of the pioneers, explaining his Manyetes and Solertia. 
• Celler Clos i Terrasses, maker of Clos Erasmus, with their second wine, Clos Laurel. 
• Celler Vinya del Vuit, with their Vuit, in its 8th anniversary. This is relevant because Vuit means Eight, the number of people working in this project, which includes names like Sara Pérez, René Barbier Jr. and Ester Nin. 
• Celler Trio Infernal, with their Trio Infernal 2/3.

 

Alas, time flies, and I could not taste all the wines on exhibition. Better luck (or planning) next year. But at least I could scratch the wolf’s fur, tasting some of the best wines from this outstanding village.

 

 

 

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

http://www.tastambllops.com/

http://www.facebook.com/search.php?q=closabatllet&init=quick&tas=0.412739808644216#%21/closabatllet

http://www.bodegasmasalta.com/
http://www.cellercecilio.com/
http://www.closfigueras.com/
http://www.cellerdelpont.com/
http://www.trioinfernal.es/
http://www.vinissimus.com/es/bodegas/index.html?id_bodega=sare
http://saodelcoster.com/
http://www.cellerabadia.com/
http://www.vinissimus.com/es/bodegas/index_html?id_bodega=cmog
http://www.europeancellars.com/portfolio_region.cfm?producer=107
http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/los-oficios-de-la-cultura/los-oficios-de-la-cultura-enologia-alvaro-palacios/1001327/
http://www.cellerpasanau.com/es/index.html

Priorat, the hidden phoenix

In the 70’s, when I was in my teens, my father would sometimes bring home a demijohn of Priorat. It contained a dark, strong, sweetish red wine. In a nutshell, that was the definition of Priorat in those years: wines were rough, very alcoholic (perhaps 16 – 19 %) and usually unbottled. And in many cases, exported elsewhere to give body to less muscular wines.

Priorat boasts a long tradition in winemaking; indeed, the name itself comes from the Carthusian Priory at Scala Dei that fostered winemaking in the area since the 12th century. And before that, wines from the Tarraconensis had been on high demand at Imperial Rome’s best tables.

However, Priorat villages, once rich and prosperous when French wine production all but disappeared due to Phylloxera, were sinking steadily into nothingness due to the high cost of vine growing and low prices of the final product, as it was then. Population had shrunk by half in 100 years.

Suddenly, at the end of the 80’s, a small group of pioneers (Barbier, Glorian, Palacios, Pastrana, Pérez), with great winemaking know-how and even greater faith in Priorat’s potential, started 5 tiny cellars and spawned a handful of wines (Clos Mogador, Clos Erasmus, l’Ermita / Dofí, Clos de l’Obac, Clos Martinet) blending grapes of old Garnatxa and Carinyena vines with younger ones of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah.

With their winemaking prowess they created wines that were dark, big and strong, but also mineral, well rounded, with the alcohol (13.5 to 15%) well integrated in the structure, and showed that Priorat could supply world class reds that, additionally, had a distinct personality.

Just a remark: I said “world class reds”. Curiously, while in most languages red wine is called red (rouge, rosso, rot...) in Catalan it is called black (negre). Has it something to do with Priorat’s rich colour? Who knows...

After the pioneers others came, mostly following their pattern, which was further blessed with excellent ratings from the international wine gurus.

Twenty years later the initial wines are still among the best, and with the bonus of consistency throughout these years and the fact that the first vintages have aged well. In the meantime, new stars have appeared: for instance, Cims de Porrera, Clos Dominic, Ferrer Bobet, Mas Doix, Mas Sinén, Nin, Terroir al Límit, Trio Infernal, Vall Llach, to name only some of those whose wines I have tasted. And a number of outsiders to be followed with care.

Apart from the reds, some whites are available, usually based on Garnatxa Blanca with the addition of Macabeu, Pedro Ximenez and Moscatell. And a few winemakers produce natural sweets and rancis, reds oxidized for long years in their casks to a golden, complex finish.

The quality factors at work are several:

• poor soils of llicorella (slate pieces that reflect light and give good draining)
• old vines growing in costers (steep slopes in the rocky hills), with optimal sun exposure
• Mediterranean/continental climate with lots of microclimates due to the hilly countryside, but in general with hot summers with big differences in temperature within the day, very cold winters (for the area), and low rainfall

All this combines to yield very low quantities (around of or less than 1 kg of fruit per plant) that have to be harvested by wholly manual methods. Indeed, some growers still use mules for some of the steepest properties.

With this quality potential and the high costs associated with such kind of vine growing, the best value is found, as I see it, in the upper levels of quality, where production cost is not so critical in final price. However, in the lower quality ranges, although Priorat offerings are excellent, their price makes them comparable to medium-high quality wines of many other regions.

All in all, the development of Priorat has been astonishing for anybody that did not know its potential. My father would have liked to see it now…

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

http://www.closmogador.com/

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

http://www.masmartinet.com/

http://debrujasyvino.blogspot.com/

http://www.masdoix.com/english/index.html

http://www.ferrerbobet.com/

http://www.massinen.com/

http://www.terroir-al-limit.com/

http://www.trioinfernal.es/

http://www.vallllach.com/