A final piece of Portal del Montsant was put in place with the
involvement of enologist Ricard Rofes. Ricard has brought with him a
profound knowledge of some of the finest wines of the region, such as
Les Sorts and Masroig. Portal de Monsant was born when the quality of
the excellent 2004 vintage begged the group to create Santbru, a wine
of the Montsant Denomination of Origin that was produced using very
mature vines of Montsant's traditional varietals. This allowed Portal
to now create excellent wines from both Priorat and Montsant.
We
tasted the regular wine that Portal de Montsant produces called Brunus
and were blown away! This 05 just screams character and class. Brunus
is produced from 60% Cariñena, 35% Garnacha and 5% Syrah vines that
average 35-70 years of age. The un-irrigated vineyard’s soil is
composed of chalk and clay that produce extremely low yields that
produce just over one ton to the acre. The grapes are hand harvested
and fermented in temperature controlled vats before aging for eight
months in first year French Allier barrels. Brunus was bottled without
filtration. Only 14,000 bottles of Brunus 05 were produced for the
world. This wine is an opulent wonder of a wine. A mouthful of big,
jammy fruit, with a brawny-beefy character is Brunus’ mantra. Included
is the Wine Advocate review below. I still can’t figure out how this
wine and under $10 Garnacha wines get the same rating? Good for the
value people I suppose, not based on reality for wines like this
though. We love Las Rocas and Menguante’s base Garnacha wines and their
90 point scores, but try this wine next to them and please tell me that
they are even in the same ballpark…
