Food Match:
Rice and pasta, poultry, white meats, red meats, game, sausages, cold cuts, meat stews, eggs, pâtés, foie, blue fish, cured cheeses, vegetables and greens.
Varieties: 60% Black Garnacha | 20% Carignan | 20% Syrah
Type of Wine: Red with 8 months of aging.
This is an authentic and top quality Priorat. Made from a blend of Garnacha, Carinena and Syrah it has the perfect balance of power and style with concentrated black fruits, spicy clove and minerality and a stylish and almost polished character that comes from great winemaking.
On December 10, 2017, Formiga de Vellut became the first Catalan wine to be served at the Nobel dinner in the entire history of the awards. Formiga de Vellut 2014 was served during the Nobel dinner, which not only contributes to reconfirming the quality of the wine, but also to highlighting all the Priorat wines and the particular attention to ecological and environmentally friendly wines.
Religion meets science with explosive results in the outstanding wines of Clos Galena. This estate was recently rated, by Stateside wine guru Robert Parker, in the top 10% of the best Spanish wines currently been made. During the 15th Century visionary Carthusian monks first planted vines in this particular area of the Priorat. Now, man of Science, Miguel Perez Gerrada is taking quality winemaking here to extraordinary new heights with scrupulously modern winemaking know-how. He recently packed-up his daytime job as university science lecturer to devote full attention to his life’s work – to produce some of the best, individually crafted, wines in Priorat, if not Spain. The estate’s award winning wines are made exclusively from their eleven hectare El Molar vineyard which is located in a remote part of the Priorat D.O.C. Yields are purposefully kept to an absolute minimum to truly express the unique power and flavour that can be found in exemplary wines from this area.
Vineyards
Soil is the distinctive element of this region. Locally known as “llicorella”, it is volcanic, formed mostly by slate, and gives wines their mineral character, which can be detected in the middle or at the end of the palate. The orography of this land is formed by successive humps which lead to the mountains, so that vines are surrounded by forests and open land. The vineyards are located at 50 to 500 metres above sea level, on the slopes of the hills, planted on terraces with two or three, but sometimes even a single row of vines.
Vinification
Manual selection of each, Organic grape variety. Fermentations of each variety take place separately, at 22°C for 7 days. Maceration is carried out at 28°C and paste is separated from wine by soft pressing of the marc. Finally, we make the blend of different mono varietals and place the coupage in barrels. The wine is aged 8 months in French (80%) and American (20%) oak barrels.