2005 Parmi Priorat l'Esperit de Porrera

Garagiste

• By Jon Rimmerman
  8/19/2008, (See more on Garagiste...)

  (PARMI L?Esprit Pri) Miani Dear Friends, What happens when Miani makes Priorat? Watch out. Here is one of the more anticipated new entries in quite a while - the buzz is pretty ridiculous for this winery but given the track record of the winemaker (Christian Patat), this will most likely head down the same road as the Chris Ringland project from last week's offer, the Aquilon (with acclaim to match). With only a few dozen cases of each of these for the US market, rarity is going to be off the wall. As far as secondary value, this winery has the potential to be interesting. Owned by a group of three Italian friends and loosely consulted upon by the Miani maestro himself (Enzo Pontoni), Mr. Miani believes the wines of Parmi are "absolutely spectacular" and he never says that (not even about his own wine). While Enzo doesn't have any official affiliation with Parmi, Christian Patat is his best friend and he makes the wine with Pontoni at Miani - the Parmi wines are produced in the same style as the Miani Merlot with a few of the secrets applied to the Spanish terroir. That is probably enough for most European collector's to snap these up quickly. The winery produces three different cuvees but today we bring you their top two wines - a single vineyard 100% Carignan from a vineyard that has pre-phylloxera vines and the other a 50/50 Garnacha/Carignan blend also from very old vines. The overall feeling that comes to mind when tasting this set is that they are not fooling around here - both of the wines hail from yields of 300-350 grams/plant which means it takes 1000 or more vines to produce just 300 bottles. Think about that for a moment. That's an entire vineyard for 30 cases of wine - thus my Chris Ringland/Three Rivers analogy. Grown at 2000-3000 ft in elevation, the combination of almost surreal levels of natural extractives and cooling elevation give Parmi a specific terroir that most would give their left leg for. This is the debut vintage from this winery, which gives us a chance to be ahead of the curve. Parmi is not yet imported into the US but I can tell you that Jorge Ordonez and the other major Spanish exporters/imports lost out on the rights to this. A project of this scope doesn't want or need to be told what to do so they politely told all of the suitors to get lost. As far as availability, you can find this 2005 set in a few scattered places in Europe at relatively low prices but I'm not sure what the eventual US pricing will be? With the 2006 vintage and beyond I believe the "per Martina" will be priced closer to Palacios L'Ermita or Romeo's Contador ($250-350) and the L'Esprit will be more like the Romeo Vina Andres ($100-150). I'm not sure why the 2005's are so low in comparison (although they are still very expensive) - they may have released them prior to coming up with a set pricing policy? The outcome is that you have this debut set at relatively normal prices for Priorat but the quantities are miniscule. An almost unbelievable new property (but it does exist, I've run my hands through the soil) that has unlimited potential: 2005 Parmi "L'Esprit" Priorat (Garnacha/Carignan) EXTREMELY LIMITED This is the flagship wine of the property, from up to 100 year old Carignan and 50-80 year old Garnacha, this is their classic Priorat on par with the region's best examples. With the extractives of a Miani wine and the excitement of Priorat, this wine is massive in every respect (sensory overload included). Black/red, almost like the thickest 100-year-old Balsamic in color and a personality that is so pent up it is like a titanium shell - this naturally made wine has to possess some of Europe's most intense raw materials (except for the Miani Merlot of course). The amazing thing about this wine is it has the acidity to back up the extract, one of the keys to Priorat's finest examples. While certainly not traditional, I think even classicists will appreciate the scope of what has been attempted here. Size and definition make this a scary wine to compete with. Does the phrase "there's a new sheriff in town" mean anything to you? Wouldn't surprise me if this scores around the same as the per Martina below, it's just a different expression but no less appealing (Godolphin vs. Amon-Ra?). 2005 Parmi "per Martina" (Carignan) EXTREMELY LIMITED Ok folks - only a few hundred bottles of this were produced and it hails from vines that are so old they lost the historic register. They started keeping track in the 1890's (this area of Spain still had horse and buggy until the 1930's) so the vines are at least 110 years of age but probably more like 130-140 years. The 300-350 gram statement above was actually a best-case scenario for this vineyard and it is closer to 200 grams (which means 20-30 cases come from 1300-1500 plants!) You just can't run a business based on that unless you charge $300-500/bottle but I guess revenue is not the motivating factor here. The only description I can use to give you a visual of this megalith is: if you could take a blowtorch to fossilized grapes and melt them in an industrial revolution iron smelter with solid road tar and a smattering of Partaga ash, it would be this wine. Critical acclaim could be of the ga-ga variety and the best thing about it is that it doesn't have the "me-too" stamp of a Jorge Ordonez wine - it retains individuality despite its Alice in Wonderland personality. Thank you, Jon Rimmerman Garagiste Seattle, WA Spain9910 Spain9920