Mas Martinet Clos Martinet 2021
(Priorat, Spain) - [WA 98 [VM 97]

About the Winery:

In 1981, Mas Martinet, a life project and a dream come true, was born. The brand is fruit of the passion of Josep Lluís Pérez and Montse Ovejero for knowledge, for the method. It means transfer, generational replacement, continuity, persistence, back and forth process. The whole family involved in the project, along with a great team , turn Mas Martinet into a sustainable, humane and drinkable project. PHILOSOPHY: We are always looking for new points of view, with a culture based on balance, sustainability and harmony with nature. We are committed to tradition, to the environment and to people. We recover some varieties and reinvent some processes and materials under the principles of agroecology and minimum intervention with the maximum respect for the people who work on it

About the Wine:

Clos Martinet is made from grapes which every year come from the plots that belong to our Mas d’en Martinet vineyard situated on the lands that form Gratallops village wines. The slate soil and different exposition of the sloping vineyards grant the wine its own character year after year. The vineyards in greater part consist of the local varieties: Garnatxa negra (Red Grenache), Carinyena (Carignan) and Garnatxa peluda (Downy Grenache) as we are convinced that they express the character of Priorat the best. However, we also maintain Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet as homage to the great pioneers like Josep Lluís Pérez. In the course of years we have been adding more and more local varieties, we work with indigenous yeast slowly abandoning the ideas that motivated us at the beginning, the technical knowledge of the grapes and wine, in favour of a dialogue with nature to be able to express the Clos Martinet vineyard.

98 Points - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate:
The nose of the 2021 Clos Martinet is amazing, very different, perfumed, elegant and nuanced. I wondered why, and there was an explanation. In 2021, it had a shorter vinification, and part was fermented with carbonic maceration and matured mostly in concrete (like in 2009, when it was 100% in concrete, a one-off) 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. It was bottled in June 2023.

97 Points - Vinous:

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.