An education in wine from a Spanish co-op

Not only do you get a great wine, you also get a lesson in grape types and soils, says Matthew Jukes.

Matthew Jukes
By Matthew Jukes
published

811-wine

2015 La Nit de les Garnatxes, Sl per Sl Llicorella, Capanes, Montsant, Spain (£14.99, VirginWines.co.uk).

This is fun. Virgin Wines has just bought four parcels of wine from the terrific Capanes co-op, high in the hills of Montsant, south of Barcelona. This amazing winery makes epic, lusty, macho reds and they never disappoint. In fact, their range is a revelation!

Each wine has the same label design, is from the same vintage and it is made from the same grape variety garnatxa, or grenache in French. The subtle difference is the soil in which these grapes are grown. There are four boxes on the top of the label and only one is ticked, depending on the exact type of soil in the vineyard. This is a technical trial which is impossible to perform unless you are a genuine vigneron. The fact that they have done this for us to see the striking differences that soil types make to a wine is fantastic.

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My pick of the four is the llicorella/slate soil, with its dense, dusty cocoa powder and plum notes. You really ought to taste all four though to take advantage of this unique opportunity. Panal/sand is gamey, spicy and tannic; calissa/limestone is mineral, earthy, firm and long; while argila/clay is the prettiest, with floral, rose petal and cherry tinges. I was completely gripped from start to finish!

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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