RIM Empordà, Sarau Blanc 2022

Producer: Jordi Esteve
Region: Catalunya, Spain
Grape Varieties: Garnatxa, Macabeu
Viticulture: Organic 
Category: Orange, Skin Contact
Size: 750ml

Jordi Esteve, born in 1981, is likely the youngest person in Rabós, a tiny village in Catalonia, Spain’s Alt Empordà region known widely for its population of 70+-year-old residents. But the wines he makes from the area’s “forgotten vineyards,” as he calls them, are undoubtedly mature, stunning representations of the local terroir. Working with six small parcels (two owned, four rented) of organically grown indigenous varieties planted in slate soils, he tends the vines meticulously and sustainably, and applies a humble, hands off approach in the cellar, favoring wild yeast fermentations, shorter macerations and gentle cap management techniques, and not fining or filtering. This cuvee is part of his easy drinking Sarau range and, despite its powerful character, is nothing less than a joy to drink. A 50-50 blend of 60-ish-year-old garnatxa roja (the local name for grenache gris) and macabeu that sees 30 hours of skin contact before being gently pressed and co-fermented in stainless steel, it pours a dazzling shade of ambery orange and offers the perfect concentration of tangerine, blood orange, ripe persimmon and unsweetened apricot jam flavors hemmed in by grippy tannins and structured by a gravelly core. Organically grown, low intervention/natural wine.