Cal Batllet-Marc Ripoll, Gratallops Llum d'Alena, DOQ Priorat, Spain, 2018

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

From the younger of the vineyards, around 25 years old, planted on the organically certified vineyards among the terraces in Gratallops.

Winemaking

Fermentation is controlled to ensure it never exceeds 26ºC, with manual overpumpings and a 30-day maceration period. Wild yeasts fermentation the wine is soft extracted with utmost respect. Aged in flextank eggs.

Tasting Note

Llum d’Alena is a wine full of flowery notes, fruits and herbs. Sweet on the entrance, it is intense, rounded, pleasing and easy to drink. A wine with plenty of fruit, structure and freshness, in perfect balance for easy drinking.

Food Matching

Paella, rice and red meat dishes.