Orto Vins "Les Argiles" Montsant Negre, Catalonia, Spain 2022

FROM LA LUZ SELECTIONS:

THE WINE: 15-75 year old vines, ecologically certified, bio-dynamically farmed and regenerative vineyards in the parcels of Era, Planes, Obagues and Palell. Owned and operated by meticulous farmers to the point of picking out every raisin out of every cluster, pre-harvest, to ensure freshness. Joan Asens is devoted to the biodynamic calendar, as well as using natural applications that withhold those strict standards.

70% destemmed, 30% whole cluster, native fermentation in inox for 29 days (biodynamic calendar). The wine is then racked into another stainless tank for brief 2-3 months on the lees before going into neutral French oak for and additional 3 months. Nothing is added to the wine except SO2 at bottling.

A bright and savory Garnatxa with a juicy pop of bright cherry and other fresh red fruits. Medium bodied with good acidity and structure, the fresh herbs and black peppercorn, keep it lively and wonderfully paired with food. Roses and potpourri with bursts of fresh Mediterranean herbs, framboise and cocoa fill the senses.

THE PRODUCER: The meticulous, eccentric and dedicated Joan Asens has been an influential wine authority in Catalunya for more than two decades, and as a professor of lunar cycles at the local winemaking University in Falset, he is considered a “guru of biodynanmics”. At the helm of viticulture and vineyard management for the acclaimed Alvaro Palacios in Priorat for nearly 18 years, Joan Asens has played a vital role in the creation of some of Spain’s most elite wines. Returning home to Mas Roig in 2009, Montsant to cultivate his friends and family’s old vines, has proved no exception. With a vibrancy and freshness unmatched in the DO, the seamless wines of Orto Vins, generally have a brighter finish, lower alcohol, and softer, floral, even elegant tannins.

Joan and three of his childhood friends are dedicated to elaborating pure wines following the traditional farming philosophies of their great grandparents and honoring the biodynamic cycle of the moon. Leaving no grape behind, Joan begins a trickle harvest 6 weeks ahead of most, with daily picking and subsequent drying of all the little raisins that have developed within each of cluster of sun drenched bunches. From these earlyharvested, concentrated and dried grapes, Orto Vins makes two (white and red) very luscious dessert wines with a mild 15% alcohol. With each pass through the vineyard, with each pick, the vine’s energy focuses on the remaining fruit so that each grape is harvested at their optimum physiological ripeness. Not at all green, and never raisinated at the time of final harvest, Orto Vins is a true vineyard selection.