There is a huge clay vessel at the entrance of the Escoda-Sanahuja winery in Conca de Barberà, that gives us a hint of what to expect. I have reported on Joan Ramón Escoda and his wines several times, so I will make this short. Let me just say that I simply love this wine. Made from all chenin blanc, fermented spontaneously, matured in 720 liters amphorae, un-fined and un-sulphured. Light and full of taste at the same time, delicious on its own or with almost any food. It’s one of those wines that I really feel have a story to tell, but where the plot is somehow hidden in some mysterious cloud too, one of the wines that make me want to quote long passages from some favourite novel, and where title of the so far un-written tale The bearable lightness of being is especially apt.
I would have called it an orange wine, as it smells like “long skin contact”, but the colour is quite light; yellow, just on the verge of going over to orange. Smells of red berries, flowers, yellow tomatoes… Concentrated yet light, grapey, long and dry, with a hint of salty minerality.
Price: Medium
Food: Delicious on its own, for meditation… But try it to almost any kind of food, from the shells of the sea to the partridge of the forest, or the thrush that bathes in the puddle (that I believe is the translation of bassot)….