Espectacle (Spectacle) is a distinctive wine project, first presented with its 2004 vintage, built around a single wine made from century-old Garnacha (Garnatxa) vines in the Montsant area. The wine is produced under the umbrella of the Laurona winery, founded in 1999 near Falset by René Barbier and Christopher Cannan.
The project brings together a small group of wine-world specialists, each contributing their own expertise: René Barbier, a pioneer of the modern Priorat renaissance and founder of Clos Mogador; his wife Isabelle Meyer, responsible for image and design (she painted the artwork used on the Espectacle label); Christopher Cannan, founder of the importer Europvin and, together with Barbier, co-founder of Clos Figueres and of Laurona; oenologist and university professor Fernando Zamora, acting as technical advisor; and winemaker Marta Conde, part of the Clos Mogador team.
Since its first vintage, Espectacle has received notable recognition, including 99 points from Robert Parker in The Wine Advocate for the 2004 vintage, and the 2008 Sibaritas award, when critic José Peñín described the 2005 vintage as 'a wine to go down in history.' The project went on to release further vintages, at least through 2016.
Imatge: Robert M. Lavinsky · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Sources: espectaclevins.com · espectaclevins.com · espectaclevins.com