Instabile No.11 Alter Ego 2017

Alfredo Arribas' Vins Nus series is a family of minimal intervention wines from the north of the region. Sourced from high altitude vineyards, they are the more radical alternative to Arribas' Montsant and Priorat wine lines. Characterized by controlled omission, they are produced with virtually no noticeable oak barrel influence, no excessive extraction, no sulfites and no enzymes. With distinctive tannins as a backbone, they are designed for several years of bottle ageing.

The InStabiles are wines from the Vins Nus series are produced without any intervention and renounce origin as well as vintage continuity. They are etudes in the art of "assemblage", the blending of grapes in traditional, artisanal cellar work - Wine Craftwork, as Arribas likes to call it. The numbers of the series denote the ongoing projects from the series.

The InSTabile Alter Ego is the 11th project in the series of over 80-year-old pre-phylloxera Garnacha, whose grapes produce wines of unique intensity. Grown on limestone and clay at 450-500 meters, they were slowly fermented spontaneously in large steel tanks and then aged in old 600l barrels. Bottled unfined and unfiltered, the wine has a slight natural cloudiness.

Garnet red with a slight cloudiness.

The nose is earthy with floral and spicy aromas of beetroot, rose, tea tree oil and long pepper, painting a picture of a wine whose ageing and incipient maturity takes it out of the context of naturals often drunk young and gives it another aromatic dimension. Fully ripe red peppers such as Piment d'Espelette give it a spicy face and lift it from banal fruitiness. A wine for the patient, which develops over days and always reveals new facets of itself.

The 2017 Alter Ego, InSTabile No 11 from the Vins Nus series by Alfredo Arribas is spicy, ripe and transparent on the nose, yet powerful with a gripping texture and ethereal-cool superstructure. Multi-layered and complex, the fine acidic nerve is coated with fine-grained and stimulating tannin, aromatically the fruit is always spicy countered. With good bite and a spicy note, it is grippy and confident on the palate with an animatingly cool finish.