Cal Batllet-Marc Ripoll, Gratallops 5 Partides, DOQ Priorat, Spain, 2016

Producer Profile

Marc Ripoll returned to his family’s vineyards in the village of Gratallops to find that they had been reduced to selling their harvests to the local co-operative.

He immediately set about renovating the dilapidated winery, and since built Cal Batllet into one of the region’s most highly regarded estates. Marc is one of a new generation of winemakers in Priorat who are intent on reclaiming the region for their own, focusing on a style that puts the local terroir at its heart and light-years away from the full-bodied blockbusters that once wowed the American critics. An organic approach to viticulture and the use of wild yeasts and barrel fermentation in the winery all come together to create wines that uniquely express the sites they come from – and none more so than the 90-year-old bush vines of the near-extinct Escanyavella grape, which translates from Catalan as ‘old lady strangler’!

Viticulture

100% Carignan wine from vineyards up to 100 years old. Planted on steep slopes in 5 different Gratallops village areas: Aubagues (250m, S,W,N), Camp d'en Piquer (250m, E), Coma (300m, NW), la Capella (300m, S), Vinyals (250m, S).

Winemaking

A spontaneous fermentation in open top 225 litre barrels as well as a flexitank egg, with pigiage twice per day at a maximum temperature of 26ºC, soft extraction, long maceration and minimal intervention with total respect for the fruit.

Tasting Note

This terroir-driven wine faithfully represents the soils of Gratallops, giving a wine that is mineral-based, complex, ripe, elegant and soft with a long finish. A superb terroir drivenwine, with volume but with excellent fruit balance.

Food Matching

Roast beef, and game!

Awards

Decanter 96 Points
Cal Batllet is part of a growing group of winemakers changing the face of Priorat wines, with organic farming practices, indigenous yeasts and barrel fermentation all being increasingly used. 5 Partides is 100 Cariñena, old vines grown in five different hillside sites. The wine is aged for 16 months in a combination of oak barrels and flexitank eggs, Slatey, dark berries, an intense and vibrant nose; well-balanced oak and a fresh finish. This is concentrated and big, yet elegant, and offers lots of underlying slatey, stony freshness. 96 Points, BW, Febriary 2023.