The Catalan “Coche-Dury”
The white wines from Ester Nin’s outstanding 2021 vintage, now with their highest scores ever!
Last month, under a brilliant blue spring sky, I visited the abandoned village of Selma. The vineyards looked stunning.
I was lucky — this spring it has rained in Spain almost as much as it has here (about time!).
I visited the vineyards of Terra Vermella and Selma, two mythical wines already compared by Parker to Coche-Dury, Leflaive, and German Rieslings.
High up on the ridge with a view of the sea, you can feel the sea breeze offering refreshing relief from the heat.
You also notice it in the alcohol levels: both Terra Vermella and Selma 2021 come in at just 12%. Very unusual for Mediterranean wines…
This is a project by Ester Nin and Carles Ortiz, two passionate winemakers best known for their top wines from Priorat (Planetes, etc.).
However, Ester comes from the small village of Pla de Manlleu, in the Montmell mountains, about an hour south of Barcelona.
To honour her parents and her roots, she started making
white wine here — now
world-class wines sought after by sommeliers in Spain’s top restaurants.
Ester has worked fully biodynamically from the very beginning.
And, by the way — for those in the know — Ester has also been the
oenologist of Clos Erasmus since the start, and was behind the first vintages of
Enric Soler’s iconic white wine
NUN.And look — Gutiérrez, the taster for R.Parker.com, has finally visited El Pla de Manlleu for the first time — the village where I also lost my heart (I have a small masia in the hills there, overlooking Selma!).
Here’s what he wrote:
Pla de Manlleu
After Penedès, I headed for Priorat, but to my surprise, I made a quick comeback to Penedès. But I saw a different Penedès, something I had never seen, a part of the region that is very different. I’m talking about the Pla de Manlleu. Ester Nin, from Familia Nin-Ortiz in Priorat, comes from that specific part of Penedès. Her brother is still a grape grower there. But her heart was always at her birthplace, and years ago, she planted a vineyard, Selma, in the heart of Pla de Manlleu.
The vineyard is at much higher altitude and in a much cooler zone, and it’s also in the middle of a forest. The traditional grape variety in the zone is a particular strain of Parellada, a mountain Parellada, or Parellada Montonega. We’re talking about a vineyard at 750 meters above sea level, where Xarel.lo didn’t use to ripen (with climate change that might not be the case in the future), and the hardy strain of Parellada keeps very low alcohol and high acidity, which is a kind of natural acidification for base wines to produce sparkling wines.
Their wines from there are simply stunning, both Selma, which has a blend of unusual grapes, and Terra Vermella, which is 100% Parellada Montonega, fresh and vibrant. I could feel the cold weather as I tasted in the vineyard, and as the sun went down, it was really cold and I had to resort to wearing hats and gloves, where in Priorat we had been in T-shirts.
Each year, we receive a small allocation of 120 bottles of each of these two outstanding white wines. The 2021 vintages were rated this weekend by R. Parker.
Our experience with older vintages has shown that they easily handle 15 years of cellaring and age beautifully.
I tasted the Selma 2008 and Terra Vermella 2014 with Carles — superb, and still with ageing potential!
Unbelievable!
These are our rarest and most mineral-driven white wines — with a bit of an edge.
Read here what R. Parker previously wrote about Terra Vermella (100% Montonega):
"This is also from the Pla de Manlleu zone of Penedès but is sold without appellation of origin. It has a slightly closed and faintly reductive personality with notes of toasted sesame seeds, gunpowder, smoke and flint a little à la Coche-Dury/Leflaive or some German Rieslings, with some diesel-like, mineral hints."
Here’s what he says now — while giving both wines their highest scores ever:
Selma 2021: 96/100
The 2021 Selma has an explosive nose of tangerine peel and is aromatic, fresh, nuanced, complex and very different from any other white from Penedès. Indeed, the zone is completely different from the rest of Penedès; it's much higher (750 meters) and cooler (I tasted in the vineyard, and it was freezing!), and the wines have the freshness and that citrus acidity. The palate is vibrant, precise, sharp and tasty, with tangerine flavors and a long, dry and chalky finish. 1,900 bottles produced.
Terra Vermella 2021: 95/100
The 2021 Terra Vermella was produced with Parellada Mantonega from a vineyard from Ester Nin's brother, a vineyard surrounded by forest. They select the grapes from head-pruned vines that ripen better and achieved a wine with 12.3% alcohol and a pH of 3.0. It's a mineral white with an absence of fruit, and it has a vertical palate, sharp and vibrant. 1,380 bottles produced.