BARCELONA VINS NUS 2018 NATURAL WINE FAIR

On the 11th and 12th of February the Vins Nus 2018 Natural Wine Fair was held in Barcelona.

For two days, about 50 wine producers from the whole of the Iberian Peninsula and the south of France had the opportunity of presenting their new releases to a passionate audience of wine lovers.

Organised by the PVN (Productores de Vinos Naturales) association, Barcelona Vins Nus is currently Spain's most important natural wine event. 

Over the last years, several facts have made Barcelona become southern Europe's natural wine capital. The quality revolution experienced by Catalan and Spanish wine, the remarkable food culture of the city, the flood of visitors attracted by the local cuisine and the existence of an increasingly knowleadgeable public, all have contributed to put Barcelona on the world map of natural wine.

To put it briefly, never in the past had the city so much to offer to those interested in drinking and eating well.

As for natural wine, long gone are the days in which it was tantamount to coarseness, rampant volatile acidity or sloppy winemaking disguised as authenticity. Right now, drinking a natural wine means, first and foremost, drinking a nicely crafted wine produced through minimal intervention techniques.

Today it is clearly not enough to craft an additive-free, no-added sulfites wine - this is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one -. Today, the crux of the matter lies in producing wines that come from a soil which is alive. Wines capable of expressing the undisguised identity of a place.

This is why many people sees natural wine as, plain and simple, the shortest route between the roots and the glass.

To illustrate this, we have chosen two wines presented at Vins Nus that made quite an impression on us.

Two red wines from L'Empordà & Priorat. North & South. Two authentic expressions of the traditional Grenache and Carignan blend.

DEMONTRE LA GUTINA 2015. Following the footsteps of maverick winemaker Carles Alonso, Celler La Gutina crafts this natural wine at Catalonia's northernmost region, on the southern side of the Pyrenees. Tremendously alive and deeply mineral, its distinctive coal note, a mark of the slate soils of the Serra de l'Albera mountain range, makes the wine  memorable.

LOS COMUNS 2015. The only natural wine producer based in Priorat, after some years fine-tuning their craft this 2015 is quite an achievement. Amazingly fresh and honest, it is both a vin de soif, a terroir-orientated wine and, above all, an immensely enjoyable wine.

If you want to give natural wine a try, here at Enterwine you will find the whole portfolio of the Escoda-Sanahuja
winery, one of Spain's pioneering natural wine producers.

For those who love native red grapes, we suggest Les Paradetes 2013.

If you love international red varieties, try Coll del Sabater 2011.

And if you fancy a blended white wine, Els Bassotets 2016 might be a good idea.

 

Until our next post,

Enjoy wine -and let it breathe.