2004 Clos Mogador
The last thing one would expect René Barbier Meyer, winemaker of Clos Mogador and son of the founder, René Barbier, to be talking about is bringing freshness to their iconic Clos Mogador red that made the Priorat region in Spain a superstar overnight in the 1990s among those who valued highly concentrated red wines. It was even more surprising to hear René speak about white wines with such a fierce passion and love. In fact, there is no one in his family who loves white wines more than he, as he stated, “I started with my father in 1992 (27 years together) and 20 years working with my wife [winemaker Sara Pérez] and I am always negotiating with my father and my wife in regards to white wines because I am the only one who loves them.”
Clos Mogador
Clos Mogador’s importance is already carved within the history books of Spanish wine as it was a game changer for an area that has extreme conditions with long, hot summers that could reach temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit and little rainfall to winters that could drop below 20 degrees. Its founder, René Barbier, was born in the province of Tarragona, where Priorat lies, to French viticulturalists and he would end up training as an enologist in France where he would go on to work in wineries in various regions eventually working for the Moueix family at their estates Pétrus, Château La Fleur Pétrus as well as others in Pomerol and Saint-Émilion. He came back home and bought a farm and winery in the Priorat district of Gratallops in 1986 making his first vintage in 1989. Local varieties such as Garnacha (Grenache) and Cariñena (Carignan) play key components in his highly-praised Clos Mogador red blend but he also added Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and some Merlot while aging the wine in 225-liter French oak barrels.
2016 Clos Mogador
Thinking back to the inception of Clos Mogador, it was difficult for many high quality European wine regions to achieve enough ripeness and often times had to battle being too austere or lacking in fruit. But also the area of Priorat was unknown to the world; a desolate place that was isolated from big cities without the resources to take advantage of their old vines, living under extreme conditions that amazingly produced plenty of fruit flavor and sugar that made richly delicious wines naturally. Also, adding international grape varieties helped to give legitimacy to these red blends as well as René Barbier falling in love with these varieties while he worked with them in France.
René Barbier Meyer
Today, the great legend’s son, René Barbier Meyer, is helping to find balance with higher alcohol wines that need more freshness and restraint in an area that is finding it difficult to deal with drought conditions. Before taking over as winemaker for Clos Mogador, René, like his father, made sure to gain experience at a diverse range of places such as Bodegas Achaval-Ferrer in Argentina, Domaine Gauby in Roussillon, France and with the late, great Didier Dagueneau in the Loire Valley, France as well as harvests in South Africa and the U.S.. He came back to Priorat where he started the Manyetes project at Clos Mogador, making wine from old Cariñena vines that struggle to survive in the steep slate soils in a hillside vineyard named Manyetes that gives a lovely freshness and he created the first Nelin white Priorat wine. Also, he has experimental wine projects with his wife Sara Pérez and together they have a joint wine label called Venus La Universal in the neighboring wine region Montsant; Sara is a highly respected winemaker in her own right and her father, Josep Lluis Pérez, is a wine legend in Priorat and today she is also the winemaker of his legendary estate, Mas Martinet.
René Barbier Meyer
A big change that is possibly on the horizon is the addition of the red grape variety Piquepoul into the Clos Mogador blend. Piquepoul is a variety that is most known in its white version that happily grows in the hot, dry areas of southern France while still being a grape that makes high acidity wines living up to its ‘lip-stinger’ name. René has a neighbor who lives next to his family’s Montsant winery, where they live, who has a 120 year old, pre-phylloxera (sandy soils) red Piquepoul vineyard; as one would imagine, the red version does well with hot, dry conditions as well and René has been impressed by the moderate alcohol and fresh wines that come from this vineyard. As he is slowly taking out the Cabernet Sauvignon at Clos Mogador and replacing it with Cariñena, he has also taken cuttings from his neighbor’s vineyard and planted the red Piquepoul in its place as he noted that the Cabernet is not doing as well as the more native varieties when it comes to managing the heat and arid conditions of summer. The blend of the Clos Mogador is moving more towards a Garnacha, Cariñena and Syrah blend and he likes the freshness that Cariñena brings and he will be curious if the red Piquepoul will add another layer of brightness.
The way this iconic wine ages at the winery has also been changing with the 2009 vintage being the last one using barriques, slowly changing to different size vessels over the years that do not impart too much oak flavors or extraction and the 2019 vintage is the first in 100% large, oak vats called foudre that will allow the wine to evolve and settle without adding too much structure or oak profile.
Clos Nelin
When it comes to making sure to have enough water for some of the vines, René says that their famous llicorella soil (schist, slate and quartz) can be tricky as there are so many inconsistencies in its friability that some roots of vines can reach subsoils with water reserves and others cannot; making water reserves himself during the winter to help those vines potentially on the verge of shutting down due to drought has become a priority. René said that they are lucky to not have any major issues with diseases like many other wine regions and the arid climate has made it possible for them to be organic from the very beginning but the heat as well as lack of water can take its toll in some years. Recently during the 2019 vintage, he lost 40% of his vineyards due to drought as well as having such a high sugar concentration in 2017’s grapes that half of his red wines had such slow ferments that it took over a year to complete and their white Priorat ‘Nelin’ took over 16 months to finish fermenting. Since they use spontaneous, indigenous yeasts, the ferments can be challenging and René actually had to move the 2017 into the concrete vessel where the 2018 vintage just finished fermenting just to finish it with the yeasts from 2018; yet he said with an energetic smile that it was exciting that the 2017 Nelin was fermented by native yeasts by two different vintages.
The future of Clos Mogador will definitely have more white wine projects and it is thrilling to anticipate them when one hears René talk about them exclaiming at one point, “White wine is my world.” He says he loves them because there are so many ways he can work with them such as doing malolatic fermentation or not do it, skin contact or not do it, oxidative winemaking (he does not like oxidative reds), using clay amphora for aging or he even expressed his fascination with the idea of flor such as what is used with the production of Fino Sherry when the wine goes through biological aging under a blanket of flor. He and his wife have already been experimenting on their own with a tiny production of 3,000 bottles of red, rosé and white wines but to do it on a larger scale and introduce such an experiment to the world could be the next revolution of Priorat.
Different Generations, Different Things to Prove
René Barbier was one of the leaders that helped to bring Priorat to prominence in the 1990s and he was able to show the world a wine that had complexity and concentration to a degree that the world had never experienced from some of the lowest yielding vineyards making dry wines, showing that European wines could be powerful and opulent. Like everything else in the world, the times call for an adjustment to match the changes over the decades as reaching high enough sugar levels and depth of flavor is no longer an issue but finding the balance with more freshness and vitality as well as celebrating the native varieties has become the focus. And now his son, René Barbier Meyer, is bringing that vitality to these wines with an electric energy that is contagious while honoring the truly extraordinary legacy his father has built – who still has a loyal following today. But it is not a matter of making Clos Mogador different, it is about acknowledging that they are no longer living in the same world that they were living in 30 years ago. Both senior and junior René have the same mission of expressing their unique vineyards and finding ways to unlock the potential of their vines that beat with their hearts but keeping that intention under a set of diverging circumstances calls for an openness to generational change; or at least a consideration to experimenting as René junior still negotiates with his father.
2017 Clos Mogador
2017 Nelin: 50% Grenache Blanc with the other 50% a mixture of Viognier, Pinot Noir (vinified as a white), Roussanne, Marsanne, Macabeo, Pedro Ximénez and Escanyavella. A mixture of stainless steel, concrete ‘eggs’ (small egg-shaped vats) and various sizes of oak barrel but this can change year to year. A real saline minerality to this wine that had fresh hints of dried thyme, nectarine and orange zest that was balanced by a good amount of mid-palate weight with aromas of wet stones and white pepper on the finish.
2017 Clos Mogador: 49% Garnacha, 25% Cariñena, 16% Syrah and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine was really surprising because one would expect that it would be too heavy since it came from an extremely concentrated and hot vintage yet the blueberry and blackberry fruit was bright and it was intermixed with notes of graphite and crushed rock that had a velvety texture to the tannins.
2016 Clos Mogador: 49% Garnacha, 25% Cariñena, 16% Syrah and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2016 is one of René Barbier Meyer’s favorites as it was a cooler year; there is a real energy to this wine and strong mineral notes that are complemented by lush fruit and fine tannins with a sustained finish that leaves black cherry and earth in one’s head.
2009 Clos Mogador: 44% Garnacha, 21% Cariñena, 19% Cabernet Sauvignon and 16% Syrah. The 2009 was much more aromatically intense with star anise and floral notes that had hints of slate and incense in the background that gave lift to the succulent black fruit that caressed the palate.
2004 Clos Mogador: Exact blend is not known; this wine had more noticeable tannic grip yet it was in a good place with the structure holding up the plush, brooding fruit that had layers of complexity that expressed itself in espresso, violets and that key mixture of earthy and mineral notes intertwined that were imprinted on all of the wines. Still lots of fleshy fruit that carried throughout the persistent finish.
