Our top wine for Spain is an icon that will please a lot of full-bodied red lovers! Aromatically vivid, freshly toned, and elegantly structured, this flagship wine from Priorat is hard to beat! Founders Rene Barbier and Isabelle Meyer made a leap of faith in 1979 when they bought their first vineyard in the Montsant Mountains, a tucked away corner of the Mediterranean region of Catalonia. Today, their son continues to make their original wine, Clos Mogador, and it continues to enthrall. It's a masterful approach to the region's richly-fruited wines, tapping into the lifted fragrance and minerality that comes so naturally from the best sites here.
Like the Chateauneuf-du-Papes of France, Priorats are generally a thoughtful combination of complementing varieties. Clos Mogador is driven by Grenache for its generous volume and Carignan for inner verve, backed up by a dollop of Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, which contribute darker fruit tones and a lightly framing structure. The 2021 Mogador is a sleek version, with fragrant garden flowers, Mediterranean herbs, and a firm core of crunchy blue and red fruits. It's all awash in a "crushed rock" minerality that invigorates its suave, finessed breadth, and leaves the palate refreshed. This is why Priorat is famous! Organically farmed.
WINE ADVOCATE 98 POINTS - "The eponymous red 2021 Clos Mogador fermented with some 30% full clusters trying to give it more freshness (but without noticing the stems) with a long maceration (40 to 50 days) and (almost) no punching down, with less extraction. There's been a progressive change in the vineyard (they removed the south-facing Cabernet Sauvignon), and they increased Cariñena (around 30%), which in the future will be almost as much as Garnacha. It has aromatic complexity and a beautiful texture. It matured in 2,000-liter oak foudres and a small part in barrel and later in concrete. The wine has 14% alcohol and has the Priorat, Mogador and Mediterranean character (wet slate, graphite, aromatic herbs) with more elegance and freshness. The tannins are also a lot more elegant, and the wine comes through as very balanced. They produced 35,000 bottles of this. It was bottled in June 2023."
Like the Chateauneuf-du-Papes of France, Priorats are generally a thoughtful combination of complementing varieties. Clos Mogador is driven by Grenache for its generous volume and Carignan for inner verve, backed up by a dollop of Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, which contribute darker fruit tones and a lightly framing structure. The 2021 Mogador is a sleek version, with fragrant garden flowers, Mediterranean herbs, and a firm core of crunchy blue and red fruits. It's all awash in a "crushed rock" minerality that invigorates its suave, finessed breadth, and leaves the palate refreshed. This is why Priorat is famous! Organically farmed.
WINE ADVOCATE 98 POINTS - "The eponymous red 2021 Clos Mogador fermented with some 30% full clusters trying to give it more freshness (but without noticing the stems) with a long maceration (40 to 50 days) and (almost) no punching down, with less extraction. There's been a progressive change in the vineyard (they removed the south-facing Cabernet Sauvignon), and they increased Cariñena (around 30%), which in the future will be almost as much as Garnacha. It has aromatic complexity and a beautiful texture. It matured in 2,000-liter oak foudres and a small part in barrel and later in concrete. The wine has 14% alcohol and has the Priorat, Mogador and Mediterranean character (wet slate, graphite, aromatic herbs) with more elegance and freshness. The tannins are also a lot more elegant, and the wine comes through as very balanced. They produced 35,000 bottles of this. It was bottled in June 2023."
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