Mas Martinet: A glimpse into the 2013 harvest

A beautiful day to start the harvest

Let the picking begin!




Priorat harvest is very slow as all the vineyards are in different locations and different climatic zones.



To introduce the harvest stages it is tradition at Mas Martinet to make paella for all the team as a great start to a new season!



A well deserved break enjoying paella and Mas Martinet wines of course.



Only the very best grapes are selected.



Grenache from Pesseroles going into the Fermenation process.



So far quality this year seems to be really good but not much quantity!

- Magi Batllevell, Mas Martinet, Priorat

Vintage Overview: Spain En Primeur - The latest releases...

A buying trip to Spain can involve an enormous amount of driving. Covering off Rueda, Ribera del Duero and Rioja en route from Madrid to Bilbao you get a real sense of the vastness of the Spanish countryside. Huge sweeping vistas greet you as you crest a cleft in a hill, on almost empty roads with arid dry rocky outcrops and fields of yellow wheat gently swaying in the midday sun.

It is a big country and the third largest wine producing country in the world, which is a tough stat to swallow when on home soil wine consumption is at an all-time low. Anecdotally we were told that in fifteen years average per capita consumption has dropped from around 45 lt/annum to only 9 lt/annum, a fact many attribute to fashion amongst the younger generation, as much as the burgeoning current economic crisis.

Well more fool them. And more for us. It really is no surprise that Spanish wines find great favour abroad. They provide value sound options to consumers at just about every price point, from entry level everyday wines right up to the very upper echelons of worldwide production.

Owing to the diversity of wine Spain has to offer, our En Primeur release comprises a variety of vintages. From 2012 we have the extraordinary Ossian, a wine that marries minerality and richness to superb effect. Coming from vines ranging from 140 – 265 years old, surely some of the oldest wine producing vines on the planet, it’s a wine of nobility and intellect that transcends the appellation of Rueda.

In 2011, most notably we have the two new releases from Aalto, fast becoming one of Ribera del Duero’s and indeed Spain’s hottest properties. In Aalto and Aalto PS 2011 Mariano Garcia and Javier Zaccagnini have crafted two utterly seductive wines that combine richness and generosity with silk textured freshness.  It’s a highly compelling combination.

Further north in Senorio de San Vicente in Rioja the Eguren family poured a selection of wines for us which once again proved just what a class act this estate is across every level of production. Worth especially looking out for are the 2010 Riojas which will go down as classics. At lunch they kindly poured a 1994 San Vicente Rioja which was so gloriously youthful, sweet, precise and refined it stopped this buyer in his tracks and was an amazing argument for sticking these wines away, tempting as they are when young.

Also from 2010 we have the amazing wines of Mas Martinet – 2010 being a vintage every bit as serious in Priorat as it is in Rioja. As well as her best ever Martinet Bru, Sarah Perez’ three highly individual crus offer power combined with spellbinding delicacy and vibrancy. They are truly not to be missed.

All in all there is a lot to be excited by in this Spanish release. We very much look forward to seeing you at the tasting on the 2^nd September.

'Click here to view the 2013 En Primeur offer'

Nou Wave Priorato

So to the land of El Bulli and FC Barcelona, Catalans show as much flair in the kitchen as they do on Nou Camp's glorious turf, the region has become a must visit for the most serious of gastronomes. The wine is catching on, too. Home of Priorat and its rugged, slate-rich hills. A unique land where red grapes are grown on dangerously steep, crumbling hills of slate.

The region is rediscovering its identity after the unwieldy, heavily oaked Cabernet Syrah and Merlot influenced wines of the nineties. Over the last 10 years the region's top producers have concentrated on the land's more traditional grape varieties, in particular the area is awash with seriously old vines Garnacha and Carinena (Grenache and Carignan.) Ok so the wines of Priorat are never going to be shrinking violets, but from today’s top producers they are definitely unique, potently moreish wines with an unmistakebale mineral streak running through them. There are about a dozen top flight producers and I have come to taste three of my favourites: Vall Llach, Mas Martinet and Mas Doix.

I am here to taste 2008s and 2007s. Two very different vintages. 07s remind the contagiously enthusiastic Sara Perez (of Mas Martinet) of the 2004s, full of richness , velvet texture with a nice but very gentle thread of acidity running through it, wines for hedonists. 08s are altogether more ethereal, in one of her more artistic moments Sara describes 2008 as a “clouds” vintage, by that I think she meant a vintage of high tones, as opposed to the more obvious but immediately seductive 07s. I adore the finesse and terroir complexity of Sara’s wines, characteristics that are perhaps more marked in 2008 than 2007, they don’t always wow the journalists because they are not all upfront, but how incredibly fine they are and they age wonderfully. The glorious, wild cherry-infused 2000 Clos Martinet that I tried at the estate will attest to that. The Vall Llach and Mas Doix offerings were exquisite, too, albeit in a slightly different style to Martinet, super sumptuous and silky yet with wonderful bright mineral lift. I believe that a certain someone across the Atlantic concurs, both of their 2007s are in the Wine Advocate’s top 10 of the vintage.

Viva the revival!