First taste: Torres Antología latest releases

There are five wines in the premium collection of Familia Torres, collectively known as Torres Antología.

At their 2021 launch in the UK, they were presented by Josep Sabarich Cases (technical director) and Joëlle Marti-Baron (global prestige wine manager). The collection covers the denominations of Conca de Barberà, Penedès and Priorat: one white and four reds.

Each of the wines comes from a distinctly different terroir.

See the tasting notes and score for the five Torres Antología wines

The only white in the group is Milmanda, a 100% Chardonnay. The vineyard was planted in the mid-1970s at the foot of a medieval castle, inland in Conca de Barberà and protected from the sea by the mountains. The first vintage was 1985.

Has the style changed much since then?

Yes, says Marti-Baron. In particular, the oak has been dialled back down. She explains: ‘The wine team and Miguel [Torres Maczasseck] are very focused on the variety. They are looking for fine, pure wine – and with a lot of oak you lose that varietal character.’

Sabarich Cases adds: ‘Oak is important if you want to keep wines. But there is plenty you can do with different oaks, lower toasts, to adjust the character.’ A number of growers have tried to make Chardonnay across Spain. This is one of the rare successes.

Refining with time

Mas La Plana (a Penedès wine, first vintage 1970) is famed for winning the Wine Olympics in Paris in 1979 – a Spanish upstart, a Cabernet Sauvignon with a little Tempranillo, beating French standard-bearers.

Since 1978, though, it has been 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Like Milmanda, the oak has been dialled down with the years. It’s now aged in 60% new oak (formerly it was 85%-90%), while vat size is moving up from barrels to foudres (from 2,000 litres to 4,000 litres).

These adjustments may seem slight, but they have noticeably transformed the wines, releasing them from their oak overcoat. Reserva Real, also from Penedès, is relatively close to Mas La Plana, but the soil is different. Where Mas La Plana is alluvial with layers of gravel, sand and clay, Reserva Real is grown on Silurian slate, unique to the Penedès.

A regular star of DWWA is Grans Muralles from Conca de Barberà (Best in Show 2019, 2020, 2021) – the wine that neatly encapsulates Torres’ longstanding commitment to research and to their land. It contains Querol and Garró, just two of the many Catalan grape varieties that Torres have recuperated in their development vineyard – although these have shown particular success.

The walls (muralles) by which the vineyard is planted are well worth a visit. With their dramatic zig-zag effect – like a child’s vision of castle walls – they protected the important Monastery of Poblet. Today, they decorate the label of a wine that makes a unique and exciting blend. The five varieties (including Garnacha, Cariñena and Monastrell, as well as Querol and Garró) are vinified separately. The first vintage was 1996 and the wine continues to improve – hence the recent flurry of success in DWWA.

The rise of Priorat

The fifth, and newest, member of the Antología family is Mas de la Rosa. Torres’ purchase of the vineyard in Priorat hit the headlines as it shot them to the top of the quality pyramid in the DOCa. The company already had a vineyard in Priorat, but nothing to match the significance of this acquisition.

Torres shares the vineyard with the Vall Llach winery, each of them enjoying a different aspect of the land and therefore a different flavour profile. The vineyard was planted in 1939 on the typical terraced slopes of brown slate. It’s a field blend, effectively 60% Cariñena with 40% Garnacha but also including some (white) Picapoll.

Each of the vintages released so far has been different: the 2018 is the result of a rainy early spring, slightly cooler and with a later harvest.

A key theme for Torres is Regenerative Agriculture. Mas La Plana and Mas de la Rosa have already been converted, while Grans Muralles is in the pipeline. The company is aiming to have 500ha under Regenerative Agriculture within five years. It’s an overall philosophy and approach to agriculture that aims to reverse the effects of climate change by rebuilding the organic matter in the soil. The declared intention of Familia Torres is to have a positive impact on the climate from 2050.

Sarah Jane Evans MW’s rates the five Torres Antología wines

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