Appellation: DO Penedès.
Cuvée: Missatge en una Ampolla.
Colour: White.
Grapes: Macabeu.
About: Amos feels Macabeu is an incredible grape, with complex fruit and cool salty acidity, but it’s difficult to grow because the skin is thin, the cluster is tight and so it’s prone to disease. So, many Macabeu wines are earthy and vegetal. The investment Amos makes in the vines pays off with a Macabeu that has a subtle but intense fruit within a celestial, light, silky structure. It’s a beautiful wine.
Vines
Location: on top of a small hill located south of Vilafranca del Penedès towards La Munia.
Size ha: 2.
Age: vines planted in 1989 by grandfather.
Soils: limestone.
Exposition: southern with rows orientation east-west.
Altitude: 250m.
Training: on wire.
Farming: organic.
Average yield hl/ha: 25.
Climate: Mediterranean.
Winemaking
The harvest is made manual into boxes of less than 15 kg, very slowly, selectively, and in several passes to pick only perfectly ripe grapes. Grapes not ripe enough are not picked. The harvest is then slowly and gently pressed direct to stainless steel (inox) tank to ferment. Around 3 to 5% of the stems are added back to lend texture and acidity to protect against the flatness that can happen within inox. The wine stays there for six months un-touched before racking by gravity and bottling without stabilization, clarication, filtration nor sulphiting.
Vintage Notes 2016
Yield hl/ha: 20.
Harvested: mid September.
Bottles produced: 3,000.
Date bottled: 2017-05.
Alcohol %: 12.10.
SO2 Total: 13.
Tasting: medium bodied, Missatge shimmers with energy while expressing a revitalising pear and lemon fruit character. Ripe and savoury, it’s a very sensuous wine.
Vintage Notes 2019
A hot, dry summer followed a wet winter and spring so the wines are both very ripe and reasonably juicy.
Yield hl/ha: 25
Date Harvested: end august
Bottles produced: . 6,000
Date bottled: 2020-08
Alcohol %: 10.5
SO2 Total: < 20