This vineyard is 3 steeply-sloping costers of Caranyena (80%) and Garnatxa planted early 20th century and now over 80 years old. Pesseroles is 3km along the old bridle path from Gratallops towards Porerra, but is actually on Torroja’s municipal footprint. (The full name of the wine is Vinyes al Cami vell de Porerra a Gratallops). It’s just to the east over a ridge from Rene’s Partida Bellvisos and there’s a fair bit of clay in the fine powdery slate here. Maceration starts with the Garnatxa Negre, after a week Garnatxa Peluda is added, then Caranyena at the beginning of week three and they ferment together (for as long as 36 days). Oak is used for fermentation to control rusticity. The wine is deep and soft just like the slate in which it grows - mineral and rustic it’s a timeless view of Priorat.
96 Vinous
Limpid violet. Expansive aromas of red and dark berry preserves, cola, incense and candied violet; a penetrating, smoky mineral quality adds focus. A core of juicy acidity supports sweet, deep-pitched cherry, blueberry and spicecake flavors that gain weight in the glass. The impressively long, persistent finish features polished tannins that frame lingering blue fruit and floral notes.
95 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The red 2018 Camí Pesseroles was named after the vineyard where the Garnacha and Cariñena grapes come from, a plot co-planted in 1939. The whole clusters were foot trodden and then fermented in two open-top 500-liter chestnut wood barrels and an oak vat with indigenous yeasts for almost three weeks. The wine was pressed and matured in 650-liter chestnut and acacia, cherry and oak wood barrels. The wine is only 13.5% alcohol and in this cool vintage has retained very good freshness. It has the elegant and fresh style of all these reds; the wines are precise, aromatic and open. This is surprisingly elegant for Cariñena, a grape that almost always has a rustic touch. 2,132 bottles and some larger formats were filled in June 2020.
