Pirineos - Principio Moristel 2021

Smokey-woodsy orchard smells, cherry tree boughs, lightly charred chestnut leaves - you can’t help but think of tracking a rabbit with a shotgun in your crook, hunching under encinas, swooshing and crunching through grasses, smelling orchard dust and feeling the fresh chill of the Pyrenees creeping in ...

Clean, red-fruited (fine sour cherry/dried cranberry) and just below mid-weight: there’s a hint of generosity, a touch of roundness, then lots of tang. Briary, with floral blackberry cane tea and lovely vegetal spice perfume finish. Rises and falls exquisitely, a genuine bargain.

NERD NOTES

‘Principio’ can mean ‘first, rule, origin, source, principal …’ Here, it denotes a return to ones’ roots by working with the local cultivar.

5,000 bottles produced, from vines around 20yo grown in sandy loam, with sandstone and marl at 400-600m altitude. Rainfall is 400mm or less. High diurnal temperature range promotes polyphenol maturity while protecting natural acidity.

Hand harvested, then fermented in stainless steel for 5 days. Native strains of yeast used during fermentation. Unclarified, unfiltered.