Safrà 2021

Safrà was born in 2015 trying to better define the plots and old wines of Celler del Roure. Safrà will be Mandó. But a different Mandó, more fluid and above all more alive, with more electrifying sensations, with more soul of a white wine. Turning the cultivation and elaboration many times while the vineyard was acquiring some more wisdom (about twenty years old) a wine profile was found that gives meaning to the great commitment to this unjustly forgotten and despised variety. The Mandó is a grape that allows a slightly advanced harvest that intensifies the characters that are sought and that is best expressed if it is vinified in wineries, with a part of whole clusters, prolonged macerations but at low temperatures and very very soft. The clay jars of the cellar fonda are the happy ending of this story. These wines of Mandó grow wonderfully well in these clay jars. The image is a dragonfly but dyed that color between yellow and orange that have some good things to eat or to enhance meals as is the case with saffron.

Robert Parker (94): The 2019 Safrà was produced with a base of Mandó, but it's a different Mandó from Parotet, livelier and more fluid. They say it's a red with the soul of a white. In any case, both wines change in 2019 with the addition of Arcos. They harvest the grapes early and use some 30% stems for the vinification in stainless steel with indigenous yeasts. This 2019 is a blend with 30% Arcos, an almost forgotten grape they are recovering and to which they are paying very much attention. Like many of the other wines, it matured in ancient buried 2,600-liter tinajas in their impressive 17th-century cellar. I've always liked the floral and aromatic expression of this wine, which has nice aromas and complexity, developing beautiful notes of sour cherries; and in the palate, it's more serious than you expect, longer, deeper and very tasty. This is more ethereal than Vermell and less spicy that Parotet. I think it has gained in freshness and complexity with the addition of Arcos, which is part of the blend for the first time in 2019. In fact, this is better than ever! 20,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in June 2020.