Appellation: Vi de Taula.
Cuvée: La Llopetera.
Colour: Red.
Grapes: Pinot Noir.
About: Pinot in the Conca de Barberá. There’s a famous Cistercian monastery at Poblet, just a few kilometres away and it’s likely the monks brought the grape with them from Dijon. It doesn’t taste anything like Burgundy, of course. It tastes like Escoda, of the earth they’re grown in, with a robust structure underpinning dark mineral fruit.
Vines
Location: Espluga del Francoli.
Size ha: 1.5.
Age: vines planted 1998 to 2000.
Soils: limestone, some sand.
Exposition: south.
Altitude: 600m.
Training: on wire.
Farming: organic and biodynamic.
Average yield hl/ha: 20 – poor soil, draining.
Climate: Mediterranean, well aerated and fresh nights.
Winemaking
Depends on the year, but usually it’s the fist fruit to be harvested by hand into small crates, part de-stemmed, with some whole bunches sandwiched into layers of juice, fermented with just one week on the skins, in stainless steel, with natural yeasts, put back in stainless for a few week, then moved to mature in old french oak barriques from the Cognac region, and usually bottled after 9 months unfined, unfiltered, unsulphured from start to finish.
Vintage Notes 2014
Tasting: Black pepper iron strawberry dried herbs, sweet attack, then thick tannins then juicy gently acids.
Vintage Notes 2017
Another very dry year.
Yield hl/ha: .
Harvested: beginning Sept.
Bottles produced: 1,000.
Date bottled: 2018-10.
Alcohol %: 12.43.
SO2 Total: < 7.
Tasting: clean, fresh, and light with just a hint of barrique, and for once almost resembling Bourgogne, with some Mediterranean richness (2018-10).