2005 Cava Turo d´en Mota Recaredo

Tallene siger en del : 100% xarel- lo, 128 måneder eller næsten 11 år med gæren i en i praksis iltløs flaske, 0,97 ha nordvendt blidt hældende pH 2,96 og ikke mindst 30hl/ha. Det sidste ligner noget, Anselme Selosse kunne nærme sig, men Selosse er bekendt noget helt andet, stærkt fadpræget og oxidativt. Turo d'en Mota er modsat reduktiv, dufter af Chablis Les clos med bolber, indadvendt, hyper mineralsk, endnu mere stensaft end Salon o tilført anis og cementbitterhed til sidst. Ikke for Champagneelskere, ej heller for folk med hang til banal cava - Den er for boblende forsiljægere!

This pure Xarel-lo wine (made from vines planted in 1940) is gold in colour, and smells of the Catalan summer hills: fennel seeds and leaves, dried wild flowers and grasses, with a hint of citrus zest in the background. It's deep, concentrated and commanding, its fine textural wealth created in part by the seething mousse, but which also seems to hint at the carbonate drench you find in Vichy Catalan mineral water, too: a remarkable facet of fine sparkling wine here. Rich, elemental, limpid and gratifying: a wine that you could sip slowly, letting the gas depart from the glass as you did so, and then enjoy it to no lesser an extent in still guise a few hours later.

The next vintage sold of what I consider the summit of Cava will be the 2005 Turó d'en Mota, one variety, one place, one vintage Xarello planted in 1940 on calcium carbonate-rich soils (14% active limestone) and harvested in 2005; this is a powerful year with concentration, perfect ripeness and good acidity. All this is possible achieving yields of 31 hectoliters per hectare in a year that was warmer and drier than the average. Yet the finished wine, disgorged after 121 months in bottle (each bottle has the disgorgement date on the back label and I tasted the first disgorgement for this vintage) has a very low pH of 2.96 and high acidity, 7.4 grams of tartaric acid and only one gram of residual sugar, as no sugar is added to any wine here-all the sparkling wines are Brut Nature. Those numbers are remarkable for a dry year with a warm summer, which often resulted in ripe wines. Not here, the wine is compact and powerful, but the style of Turo d'en Mota is always austere and a little closed, serious. It is a wine that is very mineral, more about the soil than the yeast aging. The palate is superb, pungent and mineral; this is a wine that despite the long aging is still very much alive and, dare I say it, still young and... in need of more bottle aging? The 0.97 hectares yielded 3,984 bottles in 2005. They have kept 2004 to be released later on, because they consider that is a vintage that will benefit from even more time, in line with what happened with the 2001. I'm already looking forward to it...

Bright and creamy, with a soft, silky mousse and spice- and graphite-laced flavors of ripe wild cherry, pastry and lime blossom. This rich Cava is dry and harmonious, framed by sleek acidity that drives the lasting, saline- tinged finish. Disgorged January 2017. Drink now through 2025. 332 cases made. -AN