Recaredo Turo d'en Mota, Cava, Spain

雷卡里多酒莊圖羅德恩莫塔卡瓦起泡酒

點(diǎn)擊次數(shù)：3681

Their top wine is the single-vineyard Xarel.lo 2008 Turó d'en Mota, named after the origin of the grapes. 2008 was an exceptional year in the zone, and the wine fermented in 300-liter oak barrels and then was put to referment in bottle, where it spent no less than 155 months (12 years and 11 months!) with the lees. 2008 produced healthy clusters of extraordinary acidity, ideal for the long aging, and it has only 11% alcohol, an incredible pH of 3.02 and six grams of tartaric acid. Maybe I'm influenced but the nose, but the aromatic palette from this wine is completely different from the rest of the portfolio, with green olives, curry, spices, toast and smoke and wet chalk, all in a very subtle way. This has density, fine tannins and citrus freshness that makes you salivate. This is a superb white wine that happens to have bubbles... A completely different wine, full of personality and character. This feels very young and undeveloped, as it's aging at a glacial pace. Winemaker Ton Mata told me other 2008s have evolved in a very positive way. The wine has been certified organic and biodynamic since the 2010 vintage. 4,317 numbered bottles produced.

The still young and somewhat reticent 2006 Turó d'en Mota is from an average year—not too warm, not too cold and with normal rain—and it matured for a very long time in bottle with the lees. The nose is a great combination of baked apples, Mirabelle plums, pine needles, smoke and stones, and it has great density, structure and intense minerality, with a drying, chalky sensation on the palate. It's quite different from the 2008 Reserva Particular that I tasted next to it and represented hard competition. Today I give the edge to the Reserva Particular, but only in the style of the vintage. 4,864 bottles produced.

The next vintage sold of what I consider the summit of Cava will be the 2005 Turó d'en Mota, one variety, one place, one vintage Xarello planted in 1940 on calcium carbonate-rich soils (14% active limestone) and harvested in 2005; this is a powerful year with concentration, perfect ripeness and good acidity. All this is possible achieving yields of 31 hectoliters per hectare in a year that was warmer and drier than the average. Yet the finished wine, disgorged after 121 months in bottle (each bottle has the disgorgement date on the back label and I tasted the first disgorgement for this vintage) has a very low pH of 2.96 and high acidity, 7.4 grams of tartaric acid and only one gram of residual sugar, as no sugar is added to any wine here—all the sparkling wines are Brut Nature. Those numbers are remarkable for a dry year with a warm summer, which often resulted in ripe wines. Not here, the wine is compact and powerful, but the style of Turo d'en Mota is always austere and a little closed, serious. It is a wine that is very mineral, more about the soil than the yeast aging. The palate is superb, pungent and mineral; this is a wine that despite the long aging is still very much alive and, dare I say it, still young and... in need of more bottle aging? The 0.97 hectares yielded 3,984 bottles in 2005. They have kept 2004 to be released later on, because they consider that is a vintage that will benefit from even more time, in line with what happened with the 2001. I'm already looking forward to it...

They are releasing the 2004 Turó d'en Mota after they sold the 2005, as they felt that the vintage needed more time in bottle. From this vintage onward it carries the new official denomination of Cava de Paraje Calificado. As they have done since the initial 1999, it comes from a single vineyard that gives the wine its name, and this is only the seventh vintage sold of the 19 they have produced, as it's sold after no less than 12 years (yes, YEARS!) in bottle with the lees. They consider 2004 one of the exceptional vintages in Penedès. It's pure Xarello from 0.97 hectares of vines planted in 1940 on limestone-rich soils. It was put in bottle in May 2005, and the bottle I tasted was disgorged in June 2017, 145 months later. It has great complexity, with smoky and yeasty notes, open yet subtle and elegant, with a sensation of freshness and harmony you only see in the finest vintages, which tend to be wetter and cooler years. They hadn't had as much rain as 2004 until early 2018. It doesn't feel almost 15 years old, it's still young and lively, with a very compact, integrated palate, with tiny bubbles and balsamic flavors with some Mediterranean herbs and that subtle bitterness that is part of the Xarello signature. This has to be one of the finest vintages of Turó d'en Mota, with great complexity, mocha, nuts, honey, a hint of petrol, pollen... Bravo!! The disgorging information is always available on the back label. 2,907 numbered bottles produced.

It's difficult to live up to the 2001, and even more in a torrid vintage, but still the 2003 Turó d'en Mota is a superb effort, a real triumph over the conditions of the vintage. Fine bakery aromas, faintly smoky, perfumed with some balsamic aromas of camphor and petrol, but no traces of heat anywhere. The wine was disgorged after more than 10 years in contact with the lees and no matter how elegant this is, it has the clear signature of the place and wouldn't be mistaken for Champagne. It's clearly a very elegant Cava, but showing its rustic side, the character of the place where the pure Xarello grows on the old vines planted on very chalky soils. Really lovely, tasty Cava, superb, not only in the context of the vintage, but also in the context of all sparkling wines in the world! 3,378 bottles produced.