This isn’t a post I had expected to write but sometimes you find a wine which makes you want to tell everyone how good it was. It happened back in February at Noble Rot in London when I had a bottle of the excellent Domaine Aux Moines’ Savennières 2021 and I made a beeline to the domaine in April. Then, last week we went for a week to Cambrils on the Costa Daurada near Tarragona. A week intended to be simply restful but with gourmet interludes. Well, at the excellent Miramar* restaurant I ordered a bottle of local Grenache Blanc and was blown away by it.
The bottle in question was from the Terra Alta region, Edetària’s, Finca La Terrenal 2020. It is made from old vine Garnatxa Blanca from a single, steep vineyard on clay soils. The winery is the work of Joan Àngel Lliberia who studied and worked in wine in France before returning to the area and eventually establishing his winery. It is organic wine production, harvesting by hand with careful sorting at the cellar. The wines are fermented in small tanks before ageing as appropriate for the various levels of wine they produce. The Finca wines are their top level wines aimed at expressing grape and place. Certainly, this bottle certainly achieved those goals.
The Terra Alta wine region is just west of Tarragona in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Overshadowed by other local regions, such as Priorat and Montsant, it is beginning to gain recognition. Checking back on the Spanish tasting I attended in London in February, Vinateros, there were no Terra Alta producers present so it is still relatively unknown. One interesting fact, a third of all the Grenache Blanc in the world comes from Terra Alta.
Over the next few days I deliberately chose other organic Garnatxa Blanc wines from Terra Alta to see how they compared.
LaFou Celler’s Els Ameleres 2022 is made of a blend of young and older vines, aged in various types of container to add complexity. It was a nice bottle, fresh acidity and citrussy notes, a little flabby perhaps on the finish but perfectly decent. The producer’s website claims the wine shows aromas of the local almonds which give the wine its name, I didn’t pick that up.
Better was a wine made especially for the El Posit restaurant chain by Estones Vins, a project based in Priorat but with vineyards in Montsant and Terra Alta. Salvi Moliner is the winemaker and he makes his own Garnatxa Blanca as well as this one for the restaurants. Grown in the typical sandy ‘panal’ soils, Aproppòsit Garnatxa Blanca 2022 had good acidity and freshness to accompany seafood, its raison d’être of course, but with more yellow fruit notes and complexity than the LaFou. Nice bottle.
Nothing special then, perfectly decent bottles of wine but can we expect more from Grenache Blanc? After all production of this grape has fallen by two thirds in France since 1980 so it can’t be that great? Why was La Terrenal so special?
For me, and wine taste is personal, a top white wine brings a range of characteristics. This wine had aromas of white flowers and fruit, a sense of cleanliness but also a citrus note with stony texture. At first it tasted light, citrus again, but then it built in the mouth to add peachy notes, nutty too, suggesting some oak barrel ageing. There was no heaviness, no flabby notes to leave the palate overwhelmed or tired. Instead the freshness cut through again and the wine, from first glass to last, walked a fine line between the acidity and the fruit. It developed and changed but maintained its interest all down the bottle. A balanced wine, capable of being drunk on its own or with food.
So top marks from me, it was a bottle to remember along with that excellent Savennières. And one final point. Miramar was one of several excellent restaurants we visited in the area*, whisper it quietly but a standard higher than you’d generally find in France. The wine retails for around 40€ and the restaurant listed it at 49€, I wish other restaurants had similar pricing! I know it wasn’t cheap, yet it was a bargain. Now to hunt some down!
amarchinthevines 