A wine for people who like wine

I know Ramon Massip and Eulàlia Valls, owners of Celler Cairats, because one day at the Valldoreix wine shop, Bebidas, I was tasting the wine they have in their glass today, and they were there. We ended up meeting for lunch, and, contrary to what happens when, between drinks, one suggests meetings that never happen, we ended up eating. The wines we drank, of course, are also the work of winemaker Albert Barceló, who couldn't be more talented.

Today's Cairats Selección is 60% Cariñena and 40% Garnacha. We are, therefore, looking at a classic blend. The vintage is the 19th, and, as we've been saying for months on this cheerful page, it's the year of the drought. It spent about four months in steel and eighteen to twenty months in used twelve-year-old butts: that is, used about twelve times. This is because the authors don't want the oak to "hide" the fruit. The vanilla, which many of you may be looking for in a wine aged in oak, won't be there. And, well, this is a wine that's been in the bottle for a few years now.

The estate where these two grapes are grown is Pins-Vens, in Els Guiamets, next to Darbós. These are hillsides with stone terraces. And, depending on the terrace, it's stonier or sandier. In any case, it's practically calcareous.

"I make the wine I like to make."

What's our partner doing making wine? His grandparents were farmers, who grew orchards and fruit, and he always loved the countryside. But one of his grandparents was a landlord, and the other had bad luck with numbers. Our man left home with a small bundle. "The grandparents died without a single inch of land. I studied math, and I got into IT when it was still fun." And in the end, he used his savings to buy the winery. "One estate for reds and one for whites. In 2010, we started the project. I make the wine I like to make, because it's too late to make money."

It's a gastronomic wine that goes very well with very different dishes. It has soft, rich tannins, flavors of licorice, mint-chocolate, tobacco... So you can start a meal with wine, with cheese, and finish it after a hearty game dish, with chocolate dessert. Because what we were saying: mint and chocolate, you already have it.

"I always say that we avoid fashions, trends, we make wines that want to be well made. In this country we have a culture of table wine. When someone says they want to make "wines like our grandparents'," I say: "No! Some were undrinkable! terroir And it gives what it gives, which is a lot. It's called Cairats because the wine cellar, in the largest house in the village, is a warehouse from 1900. And there are eighty squares, that is, beams. Forty squares for each water. Don't miss it. A wine for people who like wine.

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