2012 Celler Arche Pages Empordà Ull de Serp Finca La Closa

Community Tasting Notes (2) Avg Score: 70.5 points

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  1/10/2021 - forceberry wrote: 71 Points

  From a Carignan vineyard planted in 1976. Fermented and macerated for 22 days in stainless steel tanks. Aged for 15 months in a new 500-liter oak barrel. Annual production approximately 600 bottles. 15% alcohol. Tasted blind.
  
  Hazy, even slightly cloudy and moderately opaque figgy color. Dense, very evolved and really powerful nose with unctuous aromas of sweet raisins and dried dates, some Bourbon oak, light caramel tones, a little bit of minty herbal character - even mint chocolate - and a hint of overripe plums. The alcohol lends a slightly boozy touch to the nose. The wine is ripe, dense and juicy on the palate with a full body. Rich, very extracted and somewhat sweet-toned flavors of toffee, some raisiny fruit, light Bourbon-like notes of caramel and vanilla, a little bit of mint chocolate, a hint of prune and a touch of cocoa. The mouthfeel is soft and very chewy and the high alcohol lends quite pronounced heat to the palate. The acidity feels rather modest, but while the tannins at first feel rather soft and mellow, they turn out to be quite ample and slowly pile up on the gums. The finish is ripe, rich and juicy with quite a bit of tannic grip and long flavors of overripe plums, some caramel and milk chocolate notes of oak, light raisiny tones, a little bit of minty herbal character and a hint of blackcurrant jam. The high alcohol makes the wine end on a very warm note.
  
  A heavy, ponderous and ridiculously over-oaked monster of a wine that tastes like it is aged in Bourbon barrels - always down to the searing alcohol heat. I guess the idea was to make a super-intense, extracted and massively concentrated blockbuster wine that would age like crazy, but it seems the wine behaves exactly as I've expected these overripe monolithic monsters to behave: the low acidity doesn't seem to grant much aging potential to the wine and the combination of high alcohol and excessive ripeness seems to set the fruit on a path in which the fruit turns raisiny and pruney in no time. The person who poured the wine to us said the wine was surprisingly evolved compared to how it was only a few years ago, but seeing the style the wine was made in, I'm not particularly surprised. All in all, this feels like a wine I would've not enjoyed in its youth and age does not seem to have benefited the wine at all. Not recommended. Overpriced for the quality at approx. 30€.

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  10/29/2015 - WineCuentista wrote: 70 Points

  Appearance: Clear wine with a medium ruby colour.
  
  Nose: Clean nose with a Medium+ intensity. This wine is developing.
  
  Quite funky and unusual on the nose, almost chemical like. Sour cherries, earth, sweet spice and garrigue were present but I found the nose to be quite confusing and disorganised.
  
  Palate:
  Dry
  Medium+ acidity
  Medium- tannins
  Medium+ alcohol
  Medium intensity
  Medium body
  Medium- finish
  
  Simple flavours on the palate but a poorly constructed wine; the acidity was souring, the alcohol was hot... poor show. Perhaps just a bad bottle.
  
  Poor quality wine.

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