José Pastor Selections / Takeover

Jazz Fest is behind us, but tomorrow we're having Chris Barnes of Jose
Pastor Selections in to pour some wine with us, so to Spain we'll go
(I'll keep this one short, we all need some rest).

First off, the wines of Agustí Torello Roca, who makes wine for his
family's At Roca, and his own small project, Anima Mundi, both located
in Catalonia. From AT Roca we're pouring both the brut reserve and the
rosat brut reserve. AT Roca is among a handful of smaller wineries in
the Cava appellation that have shed the official cava label because of
the problems they have with the people that make the rules. I talked
in an earlier email about how Champagne is largely dominated by a
handful of large, wealthy houses. Well in Cava it's much worse, with
over 75% of the production being made by two huge producers, Codorniu
and Freixenet, who make roughly 200 million bottles a year between
them (for comparison Moet et Chandon, the largest Champagne producer
makes a measly 28 million bottles a year). Producers like the Roca
family feel this has very much been detrimental to Cava as a whole,
and the massive push for industrialization has damaged the appellation
so much that calling a small artisanal product Cava is pointless.
These two wines are methode champenoise, small production sparkling
from organic fruit. the white is 50% Macabeu, 30% Xarel-lo and 20%
Parellada, the rose is 50/50 Macabeu and Garnatxa. Agusti's side
project, Anima Mundi, is a wilder expression of the terroir of the
region. The wine we're pouring is a non-sulfur, pure expression of
Xarello.

Next is the wines of La Perdida, in Galicia. Nacho Gonzalez is a quiet
winemaker making brilliant wines in a tucked away corner of Spain.
Furthermore he has been seeking out old abandoned vineyards, away from
other vineyards that he can fully devote to organics.  His vineyard, O
Trancado, was left to him by his grandmother when she passed. A
biologist by training, he decided to rejuvenate the vineyard after
years of neglect, which then became his obsession. He makes a tiny
amount of wine right now, a minute 300 cases a year. We have three,
the aforementioned O Trancado, from Garnacha Tintorerra,  a variety of
grape called a teinturier, which is a grape with both red skin and red
juice. These grapes are usually intensely difficult to work with
alone, tending towards extreme concentration and flavor, not to
mention color, and are usually reserved for blending. Nacho, however,
gets wine of elegance and precision, a testament to his care in both
the vineyard and cellar. The second, O Poulo, is from the same grape,
and the third, Meu, is a field blend of both red and white grapes.
Fascinating wines all around and we are lucky to get the small
allocation we have.

I'll leave you with those two, I know we're all tired, and thanks for
all your hard work over Jazz Fest.

Until Next Time,

Cory