Els Escurcons, Priorato, 2018

The 2018 Els Escurcons comes from a 20-year-old vineyard, a massal selection of old Garnacha from Porrera on south- and southwest-facing terraces of ferruginous decomposed llicorella slate. In June 2015, 30 hectares of forest around the vineyard burned down, and 10% of the vines also died. The vineyard expression has been coming back since 2016, but they feel it has changed, as the vegetation around it has disappeared. The first two vintages after the fire showed anger and stress, and 2018 begins to be more open, more relaxed, a process that seems to culminate in 2020. The full clusters were crushed and put into 200-liter amphorae where they fermented with indigenous yeasts for three weeks. The wine matured in glass demijohns for 13 months. It has a strong note of iron intermixed with aromatic herbs and flowers and is fluid and gentle, with very fine tannins. The profile of all of these 2018s is elegant and fresh, quite different from the past. It has a very stony and somehow wild personality. 3,465 bottles, 40 magnums and some larger formats were filled in November 2019.

DRINKING WINDOW 2021 - 2028

date of review 12/2020