Last Monday 4th November 2019, the twelfth edition of the Best Wines Festival of la Guia de Vins de Catalunya 2020 was held at the World Trade Center in Barcelona.
With more than 1,400 wines tasted blindly, in the party participated 114 wineries that obtained scores above 9.50 points, all of them determined by three axes at the time of tasting: that the wine is from traditional Catalan varieties, that the wine be faithful to the variety or first matter and not have excess tertiary aromas of aging.
The event was conducted by Fel Faixedas, accompanied by its authors Sílvia Naranjo and Jordi Alcover, and the new members of the La Guia team, Romina Ribera and Carles Xuriguera, who awarded the prizes for the best rated wines of all la Guia de Vins de Catalunya 2020
Vinyes d’Olivardots winery received the award for Best Rosé wine of the Guide, for its 2018 Rosa d’Àmfora wine, a 100% Gray Carignan with long skin maceration and elaborated in clay amphorae.
The same wine, had a second recognition to the Best variety recovered wine from Catalonia, the Gray Carignan. An indigenous Empordanese variety that was lost and we are currently in danger of extinction. A variety that we have only registered 3.75ha in old vineyards and 2ha in young vineyard in Empordà region and about 2ha in France, but we have no knowledge of its existence to any other wine region in the world.
Vinyes d’Olivardots, in an old Macabeo vineyard, found this mixed variety and opted to vinify it alone 100% to discover its purity. Currently, they are gradually grafting the vineyards of the old vineyard in young vineyard to increase the area within the region and recover this lost variety.