Clos Mogador
Vi de Finca
Priorat
2019

The producer

Rene Barbier was one of the original proponents for the revival of Priorat. He and friend Alvaro Palacios purchased vineyards with the belief that “there’s gold in them there hills”, convincing several others to follow suit. Time - plus hard work and investment - has proved them correct, and the finest wines of Priorat today sit among the brightest stars of international wines.

Barbier’s first vintage was 1989 and within a few years have garnered international notice for his small production of Clos Mogador, and wine buyers beat a path to his door, often discovering other fine producers when nothing was available chez Barbier. The production has expanded to include a white wine called “Nelin” (a blend of Garnacha Blanca, Macabeu and Escanyanelles) and reds from neighbouring Monstant labelled “Espectacle” and “COM TU”.

The estate produces two “grand cru” wines – Clos Mogador and Clos Manyetes – both different but pre-eminent examples of this outstanding terroir. Clos Mogador is a blend of Garnacha, Carinena, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah while the less renowned, and more traditional Clos Manyetes - from a separate vineyard - is up to 90% Carinena the balance Garnacha. Both are made in small quantities, both in great demand.

The wine

Clos Mogador is the estate’s flagship wine and sourced from 20 hectares of vineyards at approximately 250 meters altitude. A blend of Grenache and Carignan mainly, but complemented with Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, the wine is allowed to age in carefully selected French oak barrels for 18 months until the perfect maturity has been reached.

Clos Mogador was the first wine in all of Spain to be awarded the prestigious ‘Vi de Finca’ qualification; a qualification which certifies that all grape material used to make this wine over the past five years minimum has been sourced from the Clos Mogador single vineyard; it is also awarded to a wine which has received international acclaim for minimum the past 10 years. Clos Mogador is one of Spain and the world’s absolute best wines, with a truly exceptional purity, complexity, concentration, and balance.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.