Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Tasted once again, the skin-contact white 2023 Abrisa't is evolving nicely in bottle. It was produced with Garnacha Blanca grapes following the ancestral tradition in the zone—before the advent of destemmers—to ferment white wine with the skins as if it were a red wine. The grapes, from a vineyard planted in 1990, fermented in clay pots with eight days of skin contact and matured in those 750-liter jars for nine months. It comes in at 13% alcohol with a pH of 3.37 and 5.5 grams of acidity, notable freshness and acidity for Garnacha Blanca. It has a golden color and the effect from the skins, and it is being polished by the time in bottle, with notes of quince paste, pollen and earth. The palate has fine tannins and a dry, chalky finish.
Producing full-bodied white wines, Grenache Blanc can be unctuous and soft or floral and fresh. Some of the finest examples are terroir-driven, age-worthy wines. It is a key ingredient in white Châteauneuf-du-Pape and many white blends across southern France and NE Spain. Somm Secret—Grenache Blanc plays a key role in the vins doux naturels of Rivesaltes and a subsidiary role in those of Banyuls and Maury.
The highest wine growing zone in Spanish Cataluña, Terra Alta is south of Priorat and Montsant. Here growers are following the trends of Priorat, recovering Garnacha blanca vines for white wines and focusing on quality red blends.