Wine of the week: an out-of-body experience

published 25 September 2020

2018 Manar dos Seixas, Galician Roots, Gallina de Piel, Ribeiro, Spain

About £19.99, oldbridgewine.co.uk, stswithinswineshippers.com, nysawine.co.uk, butlers-winecellar.co.uk

Made by El Bulli ex-sommelier David Seijas, my headline wine and also a red called 2018 Roca del Crit, Windy Roads to Montjoi (£19.99) are both absolutely extraordinary. Manar is authoritative, extremely complex and tightly wound, based on treixadura with albariño, godello and loureiro bringing immeasurable class to proceedings. It opens slowly in the glass to reveal ozone-tinged, near-tropical fruit underpinned with severe minerality. It is one of the most grown-up and exacting Spanish white wines I have tasted in years and it is a classic David creation in that it is designed to drink with epic cooking.

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Manar’s red brother Roca is a made from ancient carignan vines situated in the Rabós sub-region of Empordà, coupled with grenache harvested from younger vines in the Mas Marés zone. Some whole bunches are used and new and old larger format barrels are also employed judiciously. This does not taste like a Spanish Rhône blend to me; in fact, it reminds me of a masculine, toned, elemental Santenay, but with a much darker purple ink hue and extraordinary class.

David sent me preview samples in early July and so I have waited patiently for these staggeringly serious wines to arrive. Today is the day! Get cooking and then pour these two wines for a genuinely fascinating, out-of-body tasting experience.

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

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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.