A wine of straw
"Why all the grape drying?" "For something beautiful my boy!"
Also available on Hudin.com to Personal & Commercial subscribers.
In the world of fashion, there’s the premise that all styles come back around, something like every 20 years. This happens to be extremely good news as the skinny jean fad was killing me and I’ve been waiting to buy new “baggy” jeans for what seems like time inmemorable.
I have the distinct impression the world of fashion doesn’t apply when it comes to wines and more specifically when talking about sweet, dessert wines.
The absolute sweet zenith would probably be during the Goût Russe Champagne period which saw this treacly sparkling wine churned out in the 19th century with 300g/l of sugar for the Russian market. The fully-dessert wines of our current age are less than half that total and these sparkling wines are hopefully, something now left for the history books. But in losing that super sweet bubble format, it seems it set in motion events that have eventually taken the beautiful world of dessert wines down as well. Their general consumption has been in a freefall for something like the last 75 years now and I don’t particularly see them recovering their glory, especially in a time when both sugar and alcohol are a tag team of boogiemen.
Thus, if a winery is going to release a dessert wine today, especially one with a 20-year aging process, it’s clearly for their own curiosity/love of this oft-forgotten style of wine. This is something I would expect no less from than a winemaker such as Raül Bobet, the co-owner of the winery Ferrer-Bobet in the Priorat region of Catalunya, Spain.
Founded in 2005, the winery is one of the most visually iconic in the region given that it’s perched upon a slope of slate near the village of Porrera. When standing behind it, there’s the sense that it’s a newly-made ship about to be launched on her maiden voyage. And all this for what is a production of only 35,000 bottles annually, or 2,900 ‘American’ cases, the same as Napa Valley’s Harlan Estate.
But what’s amazing is that this dessert wine, “Vi de Palla 20”, which was released last fall after a literal 20 years of aging was no afterthought. They planned it right from the start, producing the first batch when they produced their first vintage of red wine, in 2005. The reason being that it was desired by both Bobet and the other co-owner, Sergi Ferrer-Salat who are lovers of dessert wines.
For those who know this style of wine, also known as the vin de paille method, there’s nothing out of the ordinary as the grapes, in this case the white variety of Macabeu, are harvested and then dried on canes (not straw or palla in Catalan, but the process is the same) in a ventilated space in the attic of the winery, similar to what you encounter with some wines in Jura–admittedly another very rare wine in a very rare segment.
It’s via the drying that I became aware of the wine as I was visiting the winery during harvest about a decade ago and winemaker, Isabel Fortuny asked me, “Do you want to see something interesting?”
We went up to the attic space and, intrigued by the process and knowing that the Ferrer Bobet wines are very exacting in details I asked when it would be ready to try. She laughed and said, “In 20 years!”
Thankfully this one from 2005 is out now, but, despite the 235€ asking price, I can’t see this being a money maker. There are only 633 bottles of the first vintage and, via aging it, untouched in barrels for two decades, they lose something like half of the wine but they’ve continued to make it every year.
It’s for things like this that I can’t but admire dessert wines even if they’re not currently (?) fashionable. All of them, the world over, have so much work that goes into making them and there’s so much passion, that I can’t but stoop to hyperbole and say that you can damned near taste all this effort when it finally does arrive to your lips.
This Vi de Palla 20 is a beautiful wine. It’s unfortified which makes it not the typical Vin Doux Naturel (VDN) but the much rarer Vin Naturellement Doux (VND) which I simply love as the wine kills off its own yeast in the fermentation and there’s nothing added to the the wine and is just the essence of aging–a dessert wine for the natural-inclined? And holy zip Batman, the acidity is amazing as it balances the 220g/l of sugar with a pH of 2.89 and total acidity of 7.3g/l. This is at the level of Champagne, but in a dessert wine!
As something of a “one more thing”, when at the winery and finally getting to taste this dessert wine, they opened up a bottle of their inaugural 2005 wine which, wasn’t just ‘okay’, but was thoroughly thriving.
I’ve long-been impressed with Ferrer Bobet, but the release of this dessert wine kicks it up even further.
Vi de Palla 20 2005 - Caramel, toffee, dried yellow cherry, ginger, white pepper, gumdrop and very light, sweet lavender notes. Rich and ample and the palate, lengthy with complex sweetness mixed with generous acidity and chewy, fresh herbal notes. Probably one of the finest things done with the Macabeu outside of Rioja and it even comes with a nifty case.
Negre 2005 - A Carignan and Grenache blend back when they made only one wine at the start. Well developed tobacco leaf and fine green fig along with softer earthy notes, dried blueberry and dark chocolate. Fine and lengthy on the palate, plenty of life, pushing along very well with potential to enjoy even further into the future despite the warm year. Quite a surprise to see it in such a good state two decades on and very much a testament to the ability of the winemakers.
Full scores, additional gossip, and reports available on Hudin.com to Personal & Commercial subscribers.