This is Josep Maria Vendrell’s fourth vintage. A young winemaker with long and bright future, he farms 17 hectares of wines in the mountains of southern Catalonia, where the most famous wines are the rich, savory, deeply carved reds of Priorat. Montsant surrounds Priorat on four sides. The clay and schist teruno (terroir) is wilder, and the stakes are a little lower, so if Josep Maria wants to pick his grapes a little earlier than his neighbors, and if he ages his wines in neutral oak to preserve the pure flavors produced by eighty year old Carinena and Garnacha vines, no one is going to stop him. It would be silly to try, because this is a fantastic wine that perfectly captures the spirit of Montsant. Aromas of fig, dried cherries, tobacco leaf, orange peel, and sun-baked soil come before a surprisingly fresh feeling, full bodied palate that still delivers warm climate flavors of orange cordial, dried figs, tinder-dry underbrush and slate minerality. This wine will do wonders with rare steaks, polenta, and patatas bravas.