2017 Sara Pérez y René Barbier La Vinya del Vuit

Sara Pérez is in charge of the Clos Martinet family domain and is the daughter of José Luis Pérez, one of the most important figures in the Spanish wine world. Together with her husband René Barbier Jr. (Clos Mogador) Sara Pérez owns and vinifies beautiful wines on Venus La Universal, among others, but they are actually constantly looking for the diamonds and they know that a unique country brings unique wines. This has now been proven with the iconic Clos Mogador, Venus Universal and Espectacle wines. The Catalan name Vinya La Vuit means: The Vineyard of the Eight and the 8 now well-known winemakers and Sommeliers are Sara Perez, Ester Nin, Nuria Perez, Montse Mateo, Iban Foix Rene, Barbier, Julian Basté and Philippe Thévenon. In some countries, including the USA, the wine is also called the El 8.

This great wine La Vinya del Vuit is also made by the famous husband Sara Perez & Rene Barbier (Clos Mogador). This top-notch Priorat is a blend of Cariñena and Garnatxa from more than 80 years old miniscule vineyards that are organically maintained and the plowing and harvesting is done with the help of a mule. The soil consists mainly of slate (Llicorella) located at over 350 meters with an orientation to the south. The wine has matured for 18 months in French and Austrian oak barrels and Rene and Sarah then keep the wine in the cellar for many years because they believe that this wine is always drunk much too early. Only around 2000 bottles of this topper have been made (and this is also the maximum production) and are only released to the official importers of Mas Martinet and Clos Mogador (and then only a handful of boxes) so we are happy and especially proud that we being able to offer this wine as an importer of Rene and Sara.

95/100 Parker

FACT: Every vintage of this iconic Priorat wine gets a different label, so it's also great to collect. In our frequent conversations with Rene Barbier, he personally thinks (and this is even more strongly confirmed by Sara) that his wines are actually always drunk too early. He indicates that it is an economic necessity to release the wines annually, but in his heart he would much rather release the wines only after a minimum of 5 years. Sara is even more emphatic about this and thinks that the drinking window (and points) of the wine critics are looked at too much and too often. Although all their wines would always receive very high ratings if it were up to Sara, she would much rather not participate in this circus and it creates too many label and points drinkers instead of wine enthusiasts and connoisseurs. Rene and Sara also come up with a 2005 Partida Bellvissos which he will only release after 20 years. He has only bottled this in magnums and with this he wants to prove to wine lovers that his wines only become more beautiful with maturation / aging.