Orto Vins Les Tallades de Cal Nicolau 2012
About the wine:
Grape: 100% Picapoll Negre
Region: Catalonia, Spain
Appellation: Montsant
Features: Organic, Biodynamic, Vegan
Hand Harvested, 70% destemmed, 30% whole cluster, soaks on skins for 28 days. 60% of juice comes from press, 40% comes from free run (no SO2 added). The wine is then racked into 5,000 liter 10-12 year old oak vats where it spends 12 months resting before being filtered and bottled.
Dark ruby. Restrained nose, but hints of raspberry, rosemary, rocks, black plum and fig compote. Cinnamon and baking spice on the palate, medium bodied, serious grip while retaining freshness. The tannin and restraint this wine show suggests long term aging, in the 5-15 years realm before we truly see the power of the vintage.
About the producer:
The meticulous, eccentric, and dedicated Joan Asens has been an influential wine authority in Catalunya for more than two decades. As a professor of lunar cycles at the local winemaking University in Falset, he is considered a “guru of biodynanmics.” At the helm of viticulture and vineyard management for the acclaimed Alvaro Palacios in Priorat for nearly 18 years, Joan Asens played a vital role in the creation of some of Spain’s most elite wines. His return home to Masroig, Montsant in 2009, to cultivate his friends’ and family’s old vines, has proved no exception. With a vibrancy and freshness unmatched in the DO, the seamless wines of Orto Vins generally have a brighter finish, lower alcohol, and softer, floral, elegant tannins.