94Points

“The jewel of the crown 2013 Reserva Familiar Brut Nature comes from a rainy year (with a total of 590 liters of rain) but with drier conditions from May to August. This is pure Xarel.lo from the same plot as the Terroja still wine, with plants selected from three micro plots planted with 70-year-old vines that deliver low alcohol and very high acidity, which is ideal for the freshness they look for in these sparkling wines. It has a very harmonious and subtle nose. The wines have a very slow oxidation, and there is more freshness than oxidation, which they think comes from the soils. This feels fresher than the 2015 Josep Coca (but 2013 was fresher than 2015 too); this evolves very slowly. There are notes of Mediterranean herbs, aromatic, very faint smoke, hints of silex and gunpowder, and the salty finish is very subtle. It finishes dry (less than one gram of sugar) with a chalky sensation. Serious, elegant and somehow austere. Lovely. This was about to be released when I tasted it at the end of July, and the bottle I tasted was disgorged in November 2021, after some 100 months with lees in bottle.”