Les Manyes 2023

The Les Manyes 2023 is a red wine made from pure Garnacha Peluda that favours precision over power. It comes across pale, lean and cool, carried by pronounced acidity and an inner tension that never lets it turn loud.

The vines grow at 800 metres of altitude in the Cabaçes area of the Montsant Natural Park. The subsoil of red clay and abundant limestone is unusual for Priorat. 2023 saw little rainfall and high drought stress; only in July and August did some rain arrive shortly before harvest. Picking began in the second week of August and was completed on 14 September. Yields remained very small, balance was good, and the tannins fine and elegant.

The "hairy" Garnacha Peluda is grown here as a single variety, from 60-year-old vines. After manual harvesting, the wine ferments in whole clusters and ages for eight months in cement. No oak is used.

The entry is lean, almost slight, with a sharp, pronounced acidity that quickly gives way to an invigorating, astringent juice of dark fruit: sour cherry, blackberry and elderberry. Olive, juniper, rosemary and thyme emerge subtly, without masking the fruit. Bloody and ferrous at its core, with finesse drawn from its stony structure.

With grilled lamb with herbes de Provence, duck breast with sour cherry sauce and wild boar ragù, as well as with aged Manchego and mushroom dishes.

Les Manyes is considered one of the benchmark wines of Garnacha Peluda. Dominik Huber and Tatjana Peceric farm 15 hectares biodynamically and have worked with whole-cluster infusion since 2009, without pigeage. The 2016 vintage received 100 points from the Wine Advocate.