Priorat – Gratallops especially – is a very special place to me: I spent about a month there (I happened to have been working at another winery during harvest) and, with a dictionary in hand wherever I went, taught myself Spanish. I had just spent a few weeks travelling through part of Spain and what I learned in that short time was Spain was a special place and learning the language would open up a grander world to me. It was my first immersion into living in a country where the language, the food, the culture was all new to me, and it was exhilarating.
I visited Clos Mogador that year (and the following year too!), but that was quite some time ago. Since then, I’ve worked in many cities in many countries around the world, but the access to these wines were quite limited so I had little opportunity to buy and serve them, let alone taste them.
My first introduction to the wines of Priorat took place almost 20 years ago, a few years before I spent time in the region and at a time when I was still relatively new to the world of wine. All I remember is power – deep, dark fruit, and immense, brooding powerful wines. During my time there, I saw a different side of it: the elegance that balanced out this power and, more importantly, the incredible, soulful Catalan people and their dedication and hard work that went into growing the grapes and making wine.
The 2020 vintage, I am told, was a difficult vintage. In spite of the resulting lower-than-normal yields, there is no doubt that the move towards working with regenerative agriculture and promoting biodiversity in the vineyards – creating more life and energy in the vineyards – is paying off in the final product.
It was a lot of fun to taste this wine and keep going back to it throughout the course of an evening, each time discovering something new in the glass. Though youthful, this wine is extremely approachable and enjoyable now, fresh and bursting with ripe red and black berries. The texture is plush voluptuous, full and the tannins are firm but not overpowering. There is even a touch of leather, spice, and earth which balances out the fruit so beautifully. There is no doubt that this wine will become more complex with time
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.
2020
Certificat Vi de Finca
