LES TOSSES

General Notes
Vineyards : 1.2 hectares
Location : Torroja del Priorat North
Orientation: South East 600m altitude.
Soil : Licorella Rojo (Red Slate)
Grapes: Carignan 95 %

Philosophy
Priorat is an amazing phenomena(sense of place) and our aim is
to try and capture this emotion and have it being related to the
final bottle of wine. The unique Licorella soil combined with
the dry and healthy climate at high altitude allow for the grapes
to slowly ripen during the growing season, and often mere
perfect grapes are produced. The key aspect is to reduce the
effect of winemaking to minimal processing and mere natural
handling of the grapes, to enable the individual sites to express
themselves.
The vineyard of Les Tosses has now some 71 years of age.
(2010)

Vinification
The vinification start mainly with the hand picking of the grapes
into small little 10 kg lug boxes. Then the grapes are sorted
berry for berry, the selection process is time consuming but
most important and we want to eliminate any over – ripe or
undesired grapes.. This process is extremely time consuming
and the cool room keeps the grapes cold and fresh throughout
this process.
The grapes are then places in 800 kg fermentation tanks and
natural fermentation of about three weeks follows.
After the fermentation the grapes are left for a post –
fermentation maceration of 2 / 3 weeks. The grapes are then
pressed in a basket press and the wine runs with gravity directly
to French oak Casks. The wine is left in the oval cask for about
24 months and bottled under gravity without fining nor
filtration.
Production : 1287 bottles.
Yield : 10 hl / Ha
Alc. 14.65 , pH 3.41 , Acidity 6.6 g/L

Tasing Notes
This 2007 Les Tosses displays the very dark side of Carignan
with some very dark black berry fruit flavours. It has a
seemingly very mysterious side to it that is made up mostly by
its very deep nose. One can just keep on smelling and seemingly
never get to the “bottom” of the wine’s flavour aromas. It is so
dark and compact.
The wine has the highest density of tannins imaginable and it
makes for the wine to be very firm and textured.
The amazingly high acidity is the main factor that keeps all of
the extreme factors of the Les Tosses wine together as even at
the high levels of extract that this wine contains it still has an
elegant side to it.
The tannins and the acidity forms a formidable compact side to
the wine and it will revolve over the next 20 years in different
forms and will see the wine gain increasingly more complexity
as it gets older……………