Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This shows blackberries and some grilled-meat aromas and green-olive character. Soft and fruity with an easy, fun finish. Now is the time.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The entry-level red from the ancient style range, the 2014 Vermell is a blend of Garnacha Tintorera with 15% Monastrell and 10% Mandó fermented in stainless steel with indigenous yeasts and matured in 2,600-liter amphorae for six months. It shows hints of higher ripeness, with black rather than red fruit that needed some time in the glass to settle down and slowly showed some red berries too. Perhaps the company of the new Safrà was disturbing too... This is quite fruit-driven and straightforward, but not banal, with subtle elegance, a pleasant red blend without complications, immediate and easy to drink, without much depth and complexity. The palate is nicely balanced and the effect of the old amphorae is subtle. I see that the integration of the amphorae with the wines is much better when the amphorae are old (and possibly buried), like these ones.
Spanish red wine is known for being bold, heady, rustic and age-worthy, Spain is truly a one-of-a-kind wine-producing nation. A great majority of the country is hot, arid and drought-ridden, and since irrigation has only been recently introduced and (controversially) accepted, viticulture has sustained—and flourished—only through a great understanding of Spain’s particular conditions. Large spacing between vines allows each enough resources to survive and as a result, the country has the most acreage under vine compared to any other country, but is usually third in production.
Of the Spanish red wines, the most planted and respected grape variety is Tempranillo, the star of Spain’s Rioja and Ribera del Duero regions. Priorat specializes in bold red blends, Jumilla has gained global recognition for its single varietal Monastrell and Utiel-Requena has garnered recent attention for its reds made of Bobal.