2018 Espectacle del Montsant

The top wine of Rene Barbier (including the maker of the famous Clos de Mogador and Manyetes). Just outside the Priorat, this great wine is made from 120 year old Grenache grapes located in La Figuera on the northern edge of the Montsant DO. An intense wine in color and taste. Decant and release, but then....... the powerhouse emerges: ripe fruit, floral notes such as roses, violets. Soft and fresh, complex, long drink. So beautiful! The maximum production of the Espectacle is around 5500 bottles. The absolute Top but range of the Espectacle is very limited and these are distributed all over the world. Only the most beautiful fruit, the most beautiful (and most expensive) oak is used for this wine and the production method is only focused on quality, whereby a selection takes place down to the level of the grape (the berry). It is not surprising that this wine always gets between 96 and 100 Parker points. The 2018 vintage has received 98/100 Parker points.

The vineyard is situated at an altitude of about 800 meters in the form of an amphitheater with stone terraces. Biodiversity is the magic word here: in addition to grape plants, you will find fruit trees, olive trees and local native shrubs. The grape plants, some of which are eighty to one hundred years old, grow on a slate substrate. Slate is a poor and hard soil that has as its main property that it generates a high acidity in the grapes. The location of the vineyard on slopes northeast to the sea ensures that the nights are very cool. Because the temperature in the summer in that place is usually 30 degrees Celsius during the day, this means that there are large temperature differences. This causes dyes and tannins to accumulate in large amounts in the grape skins, which is a sign of quality. The grapes are grown biodynamically, so with attention and respect for the plant and natural conditions, and all work on the land is done by hand.

The grapes are picked by hand and multiple runs are made to pick and only the grapes that have the optimum phenolic ripeness are harvested. After picking, the grapes are cooled for more than 24 hours at a temperature of 4ºC and then the 2nd selection takes place and only the very best bunches go on to the next step. The grapes are then destemmed and then again a selection takes place at berry level and only unsuitable grapes (too ripe, too green, etc) are removed. What is left of this rigorous selection process is now very lightly bruised and starts its fermentation in very fine French oak (QUERCUS PETRAEA) and the must is stirred and pumped several times a day to get the optimal extraction. This maceration process takes no less than 5 weeks, after which the wine is allowed to mature further in French oak of the most beautiful type (Barbier chooses very fine-mesh oak, quercus petrea oak) which are the most expensive barrels available) and then the wine matures around the 16 months on this beautiful elegant oak. After this, the bottles are aged for around 8-12 months before the wine is released.