Sommelier of the restaurant L’Escaleta in Cocentaina (Alicante)
What are great wines? In my opinion they are those who go beyond being merely an expression of their region, the climatic vintage and the physical work behind the finished product – they are wines that inspire emotion. For me personally, I need to empathise with the people behind the label or experience an emotional bond with them. I admit that there is a special place in my heart for the Priorat region – its emergence coincided with my first steps in the world of wine but, on this occasion, there is another reason for my affection.
It is many years since I first visited Clos Mogador but I still remember great wines, good people and interesting reflections. One on them was something like this – “each wine has its own story”. The Barbier’s started up in 1979 which was about the time that my parents and uncles outlined a dream of theirs called “L’Escaleta Restaurant” so our stories grew and matured together. Like ourselves, their dream evolved slowly but surely, always respecting the balance between the old and the new. My first Mogador was a ’98 and since then, their wines have always been on our wine list. I always try to convey to our customers this intangible bond between our two families.
The 2019 vintage expresses all this. The vegetative cycle was marked by an extreme month of June which was compensated for with all the criteria needed for the harvest. The wine shows ripeness and finesse. On the nose we can detect a bouquet of cherries, bramble fruits and fine, dark balsamic qualities including juniper, cloves and pepper. The moderately deep profile full of cocoa and Tonka beans shows elegant notes of ageing. The creamy mouthfeel presents sweet, fruit tannins with more pronounced red fruit flavours than on the nose with hints of violet.
The ageing has been managed with mastery with a rounder silhouette than before due to ageing in small barrels which imparts lengthy, fine, flowing tannins that are characteristic of the great body that this wine possesses. A great Mogador to be enjoyed already but which will offer much more enjoyment in the future.
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.
2019
Certificat Vi de Finca
