2013 - Clos Erasmus, Priorat

I also tasted two vintages of the top wine, starting with the 2013 Clos Erasmus, which follows the line towards more freshness, less oak and extraction started with 2012. It's mostly Garnacha, with some 25% Syrah, fermented with indigenous yeasts and aged mostly in French oak barriques (40% new), plus a couple of amphorae where it matured until bottling at the end of May 2015. I had followed the 2013 since before it was bottled, and every time I tasted it I liked it better and better, and I formed the idea that it was the purest, most elegant Erasmus ever produced. I was really eager to taste the bottled version of it, which I hadn't encountered until this day. And I can tell you, it didn't disappoint me at all. In fact, it was probably better than what I tasted before bottling. It's the essence of Garnacha put through a sieve of slate, with some subtle spices, with an ethereal quality I had never before seen in this wine. The palate is silky, with a seamless texture. It combines the finest fabric with the essence of the dusty roads from Priorat, elegant and rustic at the same time, like the proverbial British farmer dressed in the best corduroy trousers and tweed jacket, beautifully textured. The wet slate and the Mediterranean herbs take over the aromatic front with time in the glass, and it kept changing over the course of two hours that I followed the wine in the glass, with more and more nuances and filigree every time I went back for it. It's approachable now but I foresee a long and positive evolution in the bottle for 15+ years. The opened bottled kept fresh for a couple of days. I wish I could time travel to the future and taste it then... I think this really merits a perfect score. There are 3,000 bottles produced.

(aged in French oak barriques, 70% of them new, for 20 months.): Opaque ruby. A complex, expansive bouquet displays scents of red and dark berry preserves, potpourri and Asian spices, with a building mineral nuance. Sappy, palate-staining black raspberry and lavender pastille flavors show outstanding depth and energy, complicated by five-spice powder and vanilla nuances on the back half. The strikingly persistent, gently tannic finish strongly echoes the floral quality, resolving with a zesty berry skin note.