Gramona Gra a Gra Pinot Noir 2012

Gramona grows Pinot Noir at Mas Escorpí, a site at 350 metres altitude in the Penedès of Catalonia, planted since 1984 and farmed organically and biodynamically. Gra a Gra was born from a warm vintage when the grapes reached high sugar before the skins and pips were phenolically ripe. Rather than pick early, the team let the fruit over-ripen and raisin on the vine, drying the berries on the plant to concentrate their sugar and flavour for a sweet wine. The grapes are destemmed and sorted berry by berry on the selection table before vinification. The wine then spends seven months in French oak barrels, where slow oxygen exchange through the staves rounds the tannins and adds a vanilla and spice frame. The result is a sweet rosé-red, deep and fruit-driven. The nose carries ripe red fruit, raspberry, strawberry and cherry, with raisin and plum from the dried grapes. The palate is rich and sweet but kept fresh by the altitude-driven acidity, so it stays balanced rather than heavy. Serve cool at 10 to 12 degrees in a small glass.