Try an approachably-priced bottle from a Spanish winemaking dynasty.
Over the last 40 years, the Torres family has been on a mission. The Spanish winemaking dynasty realized that Catalonia’s wine fame was doing them a disservice. While the region used to be filled with local varieties of grapes—one that produced expressive, uniquely Spanish wines—over the years they had been pulled out (largely due to the phylloxera plague) and replanted with Tempranillo and Garnacha. As this happens, native varieties of Spanish grapes were lost.
So the Torres family took out ads in local newspapers and magazines. If anyone in the region found grape vines they couldn’t identify, call the Torres family. They unearthed weird and wild vines, growing on the edges of roads or in the middle of forests, many on the brink of extinction. They brought them back to their lab and planted them in their nursery, to see if the grapes offered any viticultural potential. Out of the sixty-odd varieties they’ve collected, six have so far, including Forcada, a lushly aromatic white variety. It’s richly mineral, with waves of sea salt salinity, rosemary and freshly squeezed lemon. $60 Or try the more approachably-priced Clos Ancestral, made with Forcada and Xarel-lo. $30
Kate Dingwall is a sommelier and wine writer. Her work frequently appears in Wine Enthusiast, Eater, Forbes.com, Vogue, and Food & Wine, and she pours wine at one of Canada’s top restaurants.
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