Celler 9+, "Tarragona Negre" 2021

Hailing from a childhood spent in the southern Catalonian countryside, the winegrower Moisès Virgili had long dreamt of wine as a means of communication. In fact, per his importer, since he was a kid on a farm, he wanted to express what home felt, looked, smelled, tasted like to him – basically, it was a love of the natural beauty by which he was surrounded as a child that spurred him to a life in wine. As he came of age, it seemed clear to him that this was the best means thru which to share the soul of what La Nou de Gaià was all about, a place some 60 miles south of Barcelona and a stone’s throw from the Mediterranean Sea. The olive groves & carob trees & vineyards striping the sandy soils of Tarragona proper. So, what followed a childhood dream was a life in pursuit of its achievement: enology school was followed by apprenticeships the world over, from Chile to South Africa and back again to the sub-regions of his Catalonian home’s corner of the world. Finally, in 2010, he dove headfirst into his own winegrowing project hell-bent on that original vision of honest transmission of this place & its native gifts ergo the focus on indigenous Catalonian varieties such as Cartoixà & Sumoll. Zero/zero delights from regeneratively farmed vines – as real as it gets.

Catalonia, Spain. A medium-bodied, spicy, zero/zero blend of Garnacha & Cabernet Sauvignon, splashed with a bit of white Cartoixà.  The grapes are destemmed and macerated with gentle pumpovers in stainless steel tanks. The wine rests in tank for a few months and is finally blended with some white Cartoixà wine before bottling unfined, unfiltered with no SO2.