RSS FeedAn early morning text message from wine exporter Pieter Whaley asking if I fancied joining him and Taiwanese wine importer Hao Tseng on a day trip to Montsant and the more celebrated Priorat nestling within its neighbouring DO, saw me heading north out of Valencia towards Tarragona.
The destinations were Vinyes d’en Gabriel in Darmós (DO Montsant), followed by lunch and a visit to Costers del Priorat, in Bellmunt del Priorat (DO Priorat). The day was genuinely hot, and it was a pleasure to get out of the car and walk around a spectacular vineyard with 100 year-old Cariñena and Garnacha vines. The owner, Josep María, was brought up by his grandparents (his grandfather is going strong at 92) using traditional agricultural techniques as a matter of course. Pesticides and the like simply bypassed them, and Josep María has simply carried on in the same vein.
The vineyard is a marvel of biodiversity – grasses and wildflowers with butterflies, lizards, ladybirds and the like buzzing and scampering about. Everything is done by hand, not just the grape-picking. The old vines give about a kilo of grapes. They used to sell to the larger wineries in the area, but increasingly felt that what they had was special and it behove them to make their own wine. It is a three-person operation who look after everything from the cherished vineyards to the newly-expanded (though still small) bodega.
They currently produce three: L’Heravi, L’Heravi Criança and L’Heravi Selecció, with a special old vine Cariñena wine in the pipeline that we were privileged to taste from the tank. The defining feature of the wines was freshness and elegance, with an accompanying violet sweetness. There was nothing overstated, yet they all had a genuine presence in glass and in the mouth. Enjoyably sophisticated wines at keen prices that say a lot about how organic doesn’t mean crude or earthy. Pieter has really come up with something in getting hold of Vinyes d’en Gabriel.
We broke for lunch with the winemaker and CEO of Costers del Priorat, Jose Mas Barberà, at Restaurant L’Economat de les Mines in Bellmunt. They had served 500 covers the previous weekend, but the patron resignedly said that everyone had gone to th ebeach on this first genuinely hot Saturday of the year. This was lucky for us as we had the table by the large window looking out from high up the hill slopes. Swallows dashed around at head height as I ate my snails followed by pig’s trotter, washed down with Costers del Priorat’s Pissarres and Clos Cypres. I confess I’d ordered my heartly local classic dishes with these steely yet opulent wines in mind, and they made spectacular pairings. With the wine world’s characteristic generosity, there was no wresting the bill away from Jose, who then led us to Costers del Priorat’s vineyards.
They have all their vineyards next to each other on facing slopes up to and beyond a hilltop cememtery lined inevitably with cypress trees. Lying all around was the characteristic jagged slate of Priorat, but before we could walk into the vineyards a terrific storm came out of nowhere. Worst of all there was violent hail. Jose kept his cool, but this was not what anyone wanted on thoseincipient grapes. So we headed off to taste his wines. This was another really impressive taste of two of the wines we had enjoyed at lunch, plus the appropriately light and sunny Elios.
It was particularly good to taste these chocolate and liquorice, but with theat characteristic mineral quality of Priorat uperpinning this all the while, and admire the way the Jose had succeeded in maintaining a harmoniously serene wine with all these macho elements looking to get their word in.
There has been something of a backlash against Priorat recently, with critics seeing the Denominación de Origen as being rather too much in terms of price and full-on — or aggressive for some — flavours. Costers del Priorat shows that this need not to be true in either respect.
All in all, it was a delight, and left me thinking that Valencia winemakers, in their different ways, have plenty to do to keep up with their neighbours to the north, who also keep refining and developing.
