Gassås Wine
Stort vitt

Tim Atkin

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I love the nose of chamomile, mushroom and sweet spices on the 2014 Selección Mónica Martínez Blanco.

The wine was produced with Viura, as they want to recover the wines from the past. It finished fermenting and matured in 300-liter oak barrels for 40 months. It has moderate alcohol and very good freshness and is perhaps a little more powerful and concentrated than the 2013, but it's still poised and balanced. There are delineated aromas and focused flavors, and the palate is vibrant, combining power and elegance, finishing dry and with a chalky sensation. It should develop nicely in bottle, but it already feels like an old traditional white. 5,500 bottles were filled in March 2019.

The Martínez Pascual family has a 100+-hectare property in Sorzano, Nalda and Entrena in Rioja, with 80 of those hectares planted by their patriarch, Gregorio Martínez Novajas, beginning in 1970. The property is on a terrace over the Ebro and Iregua Valleys at 700 meters in altitude with a north-facing orientation, and the winery was created in 1998. They use oak to ferment the white and rosé, and they age their wines in 1,100 barrels averaging eight years of age. They produce around 100,000 bottles and sell the rest of the wine to other wineries.