RP98, V97 🥇 Seller of Cult Spain Masterclass "Electric, Incredible Priorat"
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13.5% Alcohol · Llicorella Slate · Two-Thirds Concrete · Indigenous Yeast
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A Personal Note
Dear Artisans, First: thank you. Yesterday’s Spain tasting was one of the best-attended sessions we have run, and the room told us something clearly. One wine won, and it was not close. Of the 200 cases imported into this country - we sold 3 of them. People kept coming back to the table for a second and a third taste. It was the Mas Martinet “Clos Martinet” 2021 from Priorat. Ninety-eight points from the Wine Advocate. And I have good news: the importer is releasing another twenty-four bottles to us on the strength of that afternoon, arriving at the end of this week. Thirteen And A Half Percent
Look at the alcohol on this bottle. Thirteen and a half percent. If you have not tasted Priorat in ten years, stop and read that again. Priorat built its name in the nineties on wines that were fifteen, fifteen and a half percent and built like a fist. Enormous, black, hot, extracted — thrilling for one glass and possibly exhausting by the second. That was the style that made the region famous, and maybe the reason for some not collecting it. This is the new chapter, and it is a completely different wine. Sara Pérez shortened the fermentation, took part of the fruit through carbonic maceration, and raised two-thirds of it in concrete rather than new oak. What comes out is silky, pure, fresh and elegant, with the fruit and the slate both intact and nothing sitting on top of them. Luis Gutiérrez at the Wine Advocate heard it immediately. His note calls the palate “fine-boned and elegant, full of energy and an electric sensation of lightness,” with “an almost salty touch.” Electric lightness, from Priorat. Ten years ago that sentence would not have made sense. What To Compare It To
At the tasting I kept calling it Spain’s silky Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and people understood me instantly, so let me sharpen it rather than drop it. Grenache is the engine in both places. But the Châteauneuf most people picture is fifteen percent and grown on round river stones, and that is not this. The Châteauneuf this actually resembles is Château Rayas — the one estate in the appellation famous for being pale, perfumed, low in alcohol and unbelievably silky, the one everybody chases and nobody can buy. That is the register. Rayas costs four figures. This is a hundred and nine ninety-nine. Who Makes It
Mas Martinet is not a newcomer riding a trend. Josep Lluís Pérez arrived in Priorat in 1981 and became one of five people who dragged the region back from nothing. René Barbier at Clos Mogador, Álvaro Palacios at Clos Dofí, Carles Pastrana at Clos de l’Obac, Daphne Glorian at Clos Erasmus, and Pérez at Clos Martinet. They made their first vintage together in 1989 and modern Priorat starts there. His daughter Sara Pérez has run the winemaking since 1996 — and she is the reason this bottle tastes the way it does. She is one of the quietly influential people in Spanish wine right now, and the shift you are tasting in the glass is hers.
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The New Chapter
Same slate, same Garnatxa.
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Priorat, The Nineties
15%+
Black, hot and extracted. New French oak. Built like a fist. Thrilling for one glass, exhausting by the second. |
Clos Martinet 2021
13.5%
Silky, pure, fresh and elegant. Two-thirds concrete, no new oak. Fine-boned, salty, and light on its feet. |
| ★ Best Seller, Saturday’s Spain Tasting |
Mas Martinet
"Clos Martinet" 2021
Three critics, and the two who write most seriously about Spain both went to the top of their range. Gutiérrez at the Wine Advocate called 2021 “an amazing vintage for Clos Martinet” and gave it ninety-eight, the highest score this wine has taken in recent memory. Hidalgo at Vinous went ninety-seven.
Read the two notes together and you get the whole story. Both of them use the vocabulary of restraint on a wine from the hottest, steepest, most punishing vineyard land in Spain. That contradiction is the reason the room went quiet on Saturday.
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98
Wine
Advocate |
97
Vinous
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93
Wine
Spectator |
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Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate · Luis Gutiérrez
98 Points
"The nose of the 2021 Clos Martinet is amazing, very different, perfumed, elegant and nuanced. In 2021, it had a shorter vinification, and part was fermented with carbonic maceration and matured mostly in concrete… and the rest in a 2,000-liter oak foudre. There’s a lot of Garnacha (65%) and the vineyard is quite warm, so they had to find a way to equalize it down. It has 13.5% alcohol and a vibrant palate that is fine-boned and elegant, full of energy and an electric sensation of lightness. It’s tasty and makes you salivate, with an almost salty touch. This is an amazing vintage for Clos Martinet. 16,696 bottles, 216 magnums and some larger formats produced." May 2024 |
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Vinous · Joaquín Hidalgo
97 Points
"Sourced from Gratallops in Priorat, the 2021 Clos Martinet is composed primarily of Garnatxa, with the remainder consisting of Syrah, Cariñena and Cabernet Sauvignon. Two-thirds of the wine was fermented and aged in concrete, with one-third aged in foudres and amphorae. This garnet wine offers a reductive character atop a pure core of sour cherry, cinnamon, dried flowers and a faint note of undergrowth. Dry with fine-grained tannins, its compact and rich mouthfeel leads to a savory, long-lasting finish. This nuanced red is precisely defined and crystal clear on the palate." November 2024 |
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Wine Spectator · Alison Napjus
93 Points
"Baked raspberry and strawberry fruit is accented by hints of tea rose, black tea leaf, dark chocolate and incense in this lovely red, which offers a fragrant core of ripe fruit enmeshed with dense, fine-grained tannins. Plush in texture and graceful overall, with a clean swathe of citrusy acidity shaping the long, pure and mineral-laced finish. Lovely." August 2024 · Drink now through 2036 · 200 cases imported |
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Jancis Robinson
Tasting Note
"Garnacha, Cariñena, Syrah. Rich, smoky, tobacco leaves on the nose. Very juicy and complete. Lots of tannin in evidence but lots of fruit too. Bone-dry, very long finish with reverberant fruit. Serious wine." |
| Clos Martinet · The 2021 In Full | |
| Alcohol | 13.5% |
| The Blend | Garnatxa-dominant at roughly 65%, with Syrah, Carinyena and a little Cabernet |
| The Vineyard | Mas d’en Martinet, on the Gratallops village slopes of Priorat |
| Soil | Llicorella, the black slate that makes Priorat what it is |
| Fermentation | Shortened, with part of the fruit done by carbonic maceration. Indigenous yeast |
| Ageing | Two-thirds in concrete. The rest in a 2,000-litre oak foudre and amphora |
| Production | 16,696 bottles and 216 magnums made. Bottled June 2023 |
| Imported | 200 cases came to the United States, per Wine Spectator |
| Our Price | $109.99 |
24 Bottles Arriving End Of This Week
| Reserve A Bottle → |
The wine that won the room,
back for one more run.
Twenty-four bottles, arriving at the end of this week, released to us because of how the room reacted on Saturday. There is no reorder behind them.
If you were at the tasting you already know. If you were not, this is the bottle that made a full room stop talking — and it is the clearest example I can put in your hands of what Priorat has become.
Thank you again for coming out. It is a genuinely good time to be pouring Spanish wine.
Cheers,
— James Tran
| Reserve The Clos Martinet → |
24 Bottles · Arriving End Of This Week · $109.99
Call 650-917-8080, text 650-880-3553, email sales@artisan.wine, or chat with us
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