Planetes de Nin 2018

A red wine from Priorat that doesn't put its power on display. Freshness and precision take the lead, with the dark, iron-tinged aromatics of the llicorella soils providing the underlying tone. Between ripe fruit and the sinewy structure of ripe stems, the wine moves more lightly than its 14.5% ABV would suggest.

The grapes grow on Finca les Planetes, an east-facing vineyard directly opposite the village of Porrera. Carles Ortiz planted Garnacha Negra and Cariñena there and took over old plantings that also include Garnacha Peluda; the vines range from ten to more than 80 years old. They root in harder and in more heavily weathered formations of llicorella schist, with varying proportions of iron, silica and black clay.

Roughly 40% whole clusters and 60% destemmed but uncrushed berries fermented for 15 days with their natural yeasts in a 3,000-liter oak foudre. The wine was then pressed and maceration finished without the skins, followed by 20 months of aging in a 3,000-liter oak foudre.

Cherry red in the glass, then cherry with its pit and its distinctive bitter notes, along with a touch of garrigue. Beneath lies the dark side: iron, ink, black tea, dark chocolate, black rock, juniper and sloe. A tannin of fine to medium grain frames it all and carries through to the long finish.

Smoked zucchini with caramelized pine nuts and warm yogurt, fazzoletti with tuna sugo and rabbit ragù, or a tuna steak with a jus of long-aged soy sauce and balsamic.

"Biodynamic since day one" is stamped on every cork from Ester Nin and Carles Ortiz. The steep slopes leave no room for machinery, so plowing is done with mules, something no one in Porrera had done since the 1960s. The estate is a member of La Renaissance des Appellations; the wines ferment spontaneously and remain unfined and unfiltered. A few more years of bottle age will still do the 2018 good.