Spain | Catalonia | Costers del Priorat | Memòries Vi Dolç Ranci Vinyes Velles

Memòries Vi Dolç Ranci Vinyes Velles

VARIETAL
Garnacha Blanca

NOTES
VINEYARD: Sant Martí at 300m to 375ml. Vines are planted from 1934 to 2000 on red llicorella soil

VINIFICATION: Memòries blends sweet and rancio wines. The sweet part comes from sun-dried garnacha blanca grapes. Once the grapes are dehydrated as desired, they are gently pressed. The must is fermented naturally and fermentation comes to a natural stop on its own. The resulting sweet wine is blended with rancio (20%) from a 1927 solera.
2019 saw less rain than usual over the winter and spring in Priorat, and the most significant weather event was a four-day heatwave in late June and early July. Thankfully, the rest of the summer was cooler than usual allowing slow and steady ripening and no signs of dehydration. Some light rain was welcomed in September ahead of several weeks of moderate temperatures, which resulted in steady and complete maturity of grapes and an ideal harvest.

TASTING NOTES: There is a long tradition in Priorat of making sweet and rancio wines. It was customary for families to store an old barrel of rancio somewhere deep in the cellar, which was only consumed by family members at important moments in life. Historically, when a son left the family house, the parents gave him a portion of the solera. This ensured that the family’s rancio tradition lived on in a new home, each generation passing onto the next a piece of their heritage and family memories. Hence this wine, Memòries, which represents the strong bond with ancestral practices, a tribute to the centuries-long efforts of the families who built Priorat.