Ever since my first trip to Priorat, I have been fascinated by its history, wine quality and overall potential. In my opinion, Priorat is one of the most exciting wine growing areas of Spain today. It is diverse in terms of grape varieties and wine styles, yet somehow, whenever I have needed a high quality wine from this area, I always ended up choosing a Clos Mogador from René Barbier.
The 2010 vintage Clos Mogador is an intense cherry red colour with purple flecks and high viscosity. On the nose, its initial aromas tend to be lovely hints of sweet dark fruit such as plum and prune followed by a touch of gaminess. After a few minutes, these aromas move towards fresher fruits, with leafy notes and a hint of black pepper. It is truly an extremely aromatic nose, which is bursting with elegance.
On the palate, this wine gives us the impression of a ripe red wine with chocolate, vanilla and stewed cherries. It is a well-balanced wine, with good acidity and firm tannins. Its palate is complex with notes of cedar wood, sweet spices, vanilla and coffee aromas.
After decanting this wine and leaving it to breathe for a few hours, Clos Mogador 2010 takes on new dimensions: it has become rounder and more aromatic with touches of sultana, blackcurrant, licorice and a lovely intense, floral note. Such purity and balance, this wine’s tannins are ripe and are starting to integrate well. It is a wine with ageing potential. My advice would be to lay it down for another ten years before drinking.
I recommend serving this wine at 15ºC in a carafe and pouring it into a wine glass designed by Riedel for Merlot wines. A wine like this needs a lot of oxygen in order to fully display all its virtues. I can see this wine working well with dishes such as roast lamb rump, Confit shoulder, aubergines or even a Balmoral Estate venison with parsnip purée, butternut squash and a red wine sauce.
For the first time in our country, Clos Mogador, one of the prestigious wines made by René Barbier in the D.O.Ca. Priorat, was awarded the prestigious qualification of «Vi de Finca».
“Vi de Finca” is an additional qualification to the D.O.Ca. Priorat certification, which already recognizes this wine. Clos Mogador was the first wine to receive this prestigious qualification in the whole of Spain. It certifies that all grapes used to make this wine over at least the last five years have been sourced from the Clos Mogador single vineyard (five years which can be documented and traced), and at the same time is awarded to a wine which has received international acclaim over at least the last ten years.
2010
Certificat Vi de Finca
