The Catalan wine awards distinguish the Sitges Malvasía 2017, the X&XV 2017 and the Muscat Vendimia Tardía 2015.
The sixth edition of the Vinari awards, which reward and publicize the best wines of Catalonia of the year, has awarded bronze medals to three wines from the family winery Torre del Veguer in Sant Pere de Ribes. The director of the winery, Joaquín Gay de Montellà Estany, highlights the great qualitative step forward taken by Torre del Veguer. He adds that “our firm commitment to the autochthonous varieties from our own vineyards grown in El Garraf is yielding results”.
One of the wines that has brought more satisfaction and commercial recognition to Torre del Veguer this year, the Malvasía de Sitges 2017, has won a bronze medal in the Young Whites category. This wine began the year being awarded a bronze medal at the last edition of the annual Decanter World Wine Awards, which are announced as “the largest and most prestigious wine competition in the world”. The Sitges 2017 Malvasia from Torre del Veguer (Subzone Macizo del Garraf of the DO Penedès) is an aromatic wine with a bright pale yellow colour and green reflections. It stands out for its aromatic intensity, with notes of peach, water and tropical fruits, such as lychee, with a background of Mediterranean herbs of fennel and rosemary. It is sweet on the palate, fresh and tasty. It also shows persistence and volume, due to the aging with the lees. This is the second vintage of this achieved white wine made 100% with the autochthonous, aromatic and scarce variety Malvasía de Sitges. This is an organic wine suitable for vegans, fruit of the Can Parès estate, which follows the guidelines of the Catalan Council for Organic Agricultural Production (CCPAE).
The X&XV (Xarel-lo and Xarel-lo Vermell) 2017 from Torre del Veguer has been awarded a bronze medal in the category of Crianza Whites. It is a Xarel-lo del Garraf with vivid memories of the Mediterranean Sea. It has a bright lemon pulp yellow colour. Intense aroma where they emphasize the notes to fruits like the peach and floral (flower of fennel) with a balsamic bottom. It is also dominated by notes of Mediterranean aromatic herbs (rosemary, fennel and thyme). In the mouth it is voluminous, fruit of the work with the lees, and with very good acidity. It stands out for being a round and complex wine, partly thanks to the passage through a ceramic amphora. Its saline and iodized notes awaken memories of the Mediterranean, located only 4 km from this vineyard.
It has also won a bronze medal in the category of Sweet, Rancid and Dessert Wines, one of Torre del Veguer’s most award-winning products in recent years: the Muscat Late Harvest 2015. In fact, the Peñín Guide 2019 has awarded it 91 points. This is a wine made from overripe Muscat de Frontignan grapes grown in the Canal de Foix vineyard, which grows on calcareous soils with a Franco-lime structure tempered by the mild Mediterranean climate in the Garraf region. Once the Muscat grape has been harvested, 1,000 vines from the sunniest area are reserved for the production of this sweet, allowing the grape to be raisined until it reaches 20 probable sugar levels. The must obtained, which has a magnificent aroma of honey and orange, is transformed into this late-harvest sweet, which maintains its freshness thanks to its appropriate acidity.
The Auditori de Vilafranca del Penedès hosted on Friday night the gala presentation of the sixth Vinari Awards. The 197 wines that have passed to the final have been evaluated by 25 professional tasters. The wines, all blind tasted, competed in twelve categories, each of which has received one Gold Vinari, three Silver Vinari and five Bronze Vinari. This year 900 products from 250 wineries competed.