Garagiste

• By Jon Rimmerman
  10/3/2007 (link)

  (NITA Priorat) Nita Dear Friends, The Beatles wanted a revolution and Maritxell Palleja has started one without even trying. This is one of those “when it rains it pours” weeks, first the Pyramid Valley and now this, one of the highlights of my last two trips to Europe and a wine I’ve been trying to secure since last year at this time. With a circuitous structure of importation about to unfold for this winery, the time was now to take advantage of one of the lowest prices I’ve seen on Priorat since the wines first hit the market twenty years ago. Let’s face it, when a wine is fairly inexpensive in Spain, it shouldn’t be three times as much in the US and thankfully they realize this. Quantities on this item are very small but the wine deserves a full report as it is one of the more special vinous treats being produced in Europe. The Nita is made by Maritxell Palleja and she is one of the young beacons of energy, passion and talent in Europe - she reminds me of Spain’s answer to a young Silvia Imparato of Montevetrano and that should be evidence enough of her merit. She is not a gold-digger or chaser of monetary fame and fortune - she is a third generation resident of Priorat and she knows the hills and backwater stashes of vines as well as anyone. Ask Rene’ Barbier or Alvaro Palacios who the best young winemaker in Priorat is and I think I know what they will tell you. While they came to this region to make Priorat a wine on par with the best of France, Maritxell is set to make Priorat on par with the best of her modern, free-thinking generation and the best in the world. She is doing so with a philosophy that would have seemed heretic a few years ago - no oak (almost unheard of in Priorat), no sauce, no over-done clown shows yet somehow the wine is still just as extracted, deep and full of the intense soil tone that this region has become synonymous with. These are quite admirable traits but the real showstopper is the price - one that Maritxell’s grandmother would have approved of (this wine is named for her). In Maritxell’s world, Priorat should be affordable (so people her age can buy it, not just the world’s top collectors) and so it is. Maybe she won’t make a lot of money on this wine but that was never her motivation to begin with. The 2005 Nita has not only one of the more beautiful wine labels you will come across but it has everything in the bottle as well. From extremely low yielding old-vine Garnacha and Carignan (I believe 60-100 years of age), this wine is full to the brim with dark fruit, minerals, impact and (for lack of a better term) magic (it is even better after 2-3 hours of air). This wine is beautifully complicated, complex and full of energy. Maybe Maritxell has an unfair advantage (she was involved with producing Alvaro Palacios’ L’Ermita and Finca Dofi as his assistant) but she’s taken her training and put it into her own expression of her homeland all without any new oak, high prices or marketing games (this wine is also 100% biodynamic). What makes this wine truly unique is that it will score with the critics just as it will score with the coolio set trying to be different. There is little doubt in my mind that when this wine is reviewed in the US next year it will be put on a pedestal like the early wines of the region. In my opinion, taking price/value, philosophy, non-interventionist/biodynamic principles and (like it or not) the fact that she is a young woman working in a man’s world into account, the 2005 Nita ranks as one of the more important wines from the 2005 vintage from anywhere in the world. One of the least desirable aspects to what I do is the interpretation of something as a sales pitch or hype to sell something when that is not the intention. We’ve survived to this point without ever advertising (not once) and we feel fortunate when each and every one of you believes in something we find enough to try it. That being said, if you’ve been on a wine buying moratorium, now’s the time to break the silence. ONE SHIPMENT ONLY directly from the winery cellar 2005 Nita (Maritxell Palleja) Priorat Thank you, Jon Rimmerman Garagiste Seattle, WA Spain2250