Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Funnily enough, Dominik Huber has only one varietal Garnacha wine, and it's a top one. The vineyard is in Torroja where the soils are slate and for Dominik slate works better with Cariñena, so he sources the Garnacha from elsewhere. The prodigious 2012 Les Manyes is an unusual single-vineyard Garnacha from a 50-year-old plot over the Montsant Mountains, in the Masdeu zone above the Scala Dei Monastery (not in Torroja at all!), where the soils are not the usual slate, but they are clay-rich with a chalk component. The vineyard is really high and surrounded by impressive dry stone walls and constructions, there is even a route to admire these old works of art. The full clusters were macerated and fermented with indigenous yeasts and the wine matured for two years in old foudres from Austria. The nose is high-pitched, very lifted, with a different personality from its siblings, perfumed, with a mixture of flowers and acid berries hints of oriental spices, but more mineral and earthy and less fragrant than previous vintages, with restrained ripeness. The palate mixes that chalky minerality with the juiciness of the Garnacha, a mixture of Mediterranean and Atlantic characters. It gets better and better in the glass, opening up and showing more nuances. Compact, round, terse and serious, it doesn't show any oak or alcohol, and if you look at the figures the alcohol is only 13.5. Awesome balance.
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Wine Spectator
This smooth, firm red delivers harmonious flavors of cherry, vanilla, spice, leafy and cola, focused by firm tannins and balsamic acidity. A bit muted, but solid and deep. Drink now through 2025.
Grenache thrives in any warm, Mediterranean climate where ample sunlight allows its clusters to achieve full phenolic ripeness. While Grenache's birthplace is Spain (there called Garnacha), today it is more recognized as the key player in the red blends of the Southern Rhône, namely Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Côtes du Rhône and its villages. Somm Secret—The Italian island of Sardinia produces bold, rustic, single varietal Grenache (there called Cannonau). California, Washington and Australia have achieved found success with Grenache, both flying solo and in blends.
Tiny and entirely composed of craggy, jagged and deeply terraced vineyards, Priorat is a Catalan wine-producing region that was virtually abandoned until the early 1990s. This Spanish wine's renaissance came with the arrival of one man, René Barbier, who recognized the region’s forgotten potential. He banded with five friends to create five “Clos” in the village of Gratallops. Their aim was to revive some of Priorat’s ancient Carignan vines, as well as plant new—mainly French—varieties. These winemakers were technically skilled, well-trained and locally inspired; not surprisingly their results were a far cry from the few rustic and overly fermented wines already produced.
This movement escalated Priorat’s popularity for a few reasons. Its new wines were modern and made with well-recognized varieties, namely old Carignan and Grenache blended with Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. When the demand arrived, scarcity commanded higher prices and as the region discovered its new acclaim, investors came running from near and far. Within ten years, the area under vine practically doubled.
Priorat’s steep slopes of licorella (brown and black slate) and quartzite soils, protection from the cold winds of the Siera de Monstant and a lack of water, leading to incredibly low vine yields, all work together to make the region’s wines unique. While similar blends could and are produced elsewhere, the mineral essence and unprecedented concentration of a Priorat wine is unmistakable.