Terroir Al Limit Soc. Lda. Les Manyes, Priorat, Spain

極限風土萊曼紅葡萄酒

點擊次數(shù)：10192

The impressive 2021 Les Manyes was very young and a little closed, even reductive and took time in the glass to take off. It slowly developed an acute note of violets and wild plants. It has a little more color than the 2019, but the maceration was more or less the same, so it must be from the year. It's very attractive, juicy and easy to drink, with notes that made me think of Chateau Rayas. It's fresher than the 2019 I tasted next to it. It's elegant and fruit-driven, right now very young, and it still doesn't have the complexity that it should gain over time. 2,688 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2022.

A pale ruby-colored pure Garnacha from clay and limestone soils (a rarity in Priorat), the 2019 Les Manyes is very primary and fruit-driven, with an explosive nose of berries, wild herbs and flowers and it has a medium-bodied palate, juicy and with very fine chalky tannins. It's a very pretty Garnacha that is open and expressive. It has good ripeness and plenty of aromas, denoting proper ripeness of the grapes that had the time to develop aromas and flavors. This is ethereal but full of energy and light. It opens up and evolves very nicely in the glass. 1,868 bottles produced.

I think the 2018 Les Manyes is more in line with the 2016 than the 2017 is, more elegant, precise, fresh and subtle. This is very young and undeveloped, very primary, a bit shy, and it takes time to take off in the glass to reveal notes of violets and strawberry leaf, elegant and nuanced. The palate is very balanced and elegant—it's a very pretty wine. This is very young and needs air and time in the glass if you open a bottle any time soon. My guess is that this is gong to develop very slowly in bottle, developing complexity and nuance with time. It's a superb vintage for Les Manyes. 3,338 bottles were filled in September 2020.

I tasted two vintages of the top Garnacha (Peluda), so next to the 2017 Les Manyes, I also had the 2018; it was great to see the differences in the wines, even if the analytical data showed pretty similar. This amazing vineyard at 800 meters in altitude on red clay and gypsum soils has more in common with some vineyards from Montsant than the majority of other vineyards from Priorat. In 2016, they started aging the wine 100% in concrete, and they have no intention of going back. This is quite austere and compact and has had a slow oxidation in concrete, and the wine feels quite stabilized and fresher than other 2017s but again perhaps not as deep as the 2018. It's not a showy vintage; it's quite subtle. It takes a long time to open up in the glass, and it's clearly the freshest of the 2017s. 3,200 bottles were filled in June 2020 after a longer élevage, exclusively in concrete for this second bottling lot.

The 2016 Les Manyes is aromatic with tantalizing aromas of wild berries and herbs, flowers, a touch of forest floor and something salty. This has a lighter color and comes from a healthier vineyard that gives slightly higher yields (it was not in good shape); the vineyard is in a high-altitude place where they escape the heat of the Priorat. Of course the soils are completely different—they are limestone instead of slate and have more in common with Montsant than the majority of Priorat. The nose could be a mixture of a great vintage of Chateau Rayas and a traditional Nebbiolo from Piemonte. It's beautifully textured, with refined, chalky tannins and a medium to full-bodied palate, with no room for sweetness but with the volume of ripe Garnacha, pungent flavors and a very long finish. I just couldn't get myself to spit the wine! This is as far removed from a sweet wine as possible: This is a salty wine, a wine for food, a wine for gastronomy. The nose kept changing in the glass, developing new nuances with time—aromatic, intoxicating and attractive, with a kind of magnetism that made me go back to the glass over and over again. I could smell this for hours... I don't think Priorat gets much better than this! Bravo! 2,868 bottles were filled in July 2018.