On the verge of celebrating its centenary next year, Recaredo wanted to celebrate at El Celler de Can Roca in Girona the 25th harvest of one of the most iconic sparkling wines, its Turó d'en Mota. It was born in 1999 as a new idea: the first quality sparkling wine in history made 100% with the native variety “heart of Penedès.” Likewise, Turó d'en Mota “represented a challenge – never seen before on the market – to long aging in rhyme, one of the historical features of Recaredo's DNA.”
In the Roca brothers' restaurant, who prepared a special menu for the occasion, it was even possible to taste the base wine produced by this year's dry and warm harvest. Vintages such as 2009, 2007, 2004 and 2001 shone with their own light. And of the products that are not yet on the market, vintages such as 2011, 2013, 2016 or 2019 stood out.
Recaredo also took advantage of the event to present its new unicorn, its most exclusive product. This is the Enoteca from the first vintage of Turó d'en Mota, from 1999 (with up to 23.5 years of aging). The Turó d’en Mota 1999 was released during the spring of 2008 with a total production of 2,973 bottles. The Enoteca is an extreme aging that now hits the market with an approximate price of 575 euros, and that will continue every year (yesterday all the Turó d'en Mota that will become Enoteca could be tasted in a spectacular vertical tasting).
A very limited edition of 150 bottles of this first vintage is sold. It surprises with its great complexity and aging capacity, with notes of dried apricots, nuts, pastries and salinity. The current vintage of Turó d’en Mota, 2009, is offered at €135. Yesterday's vertical tasting revealed the transparency of this sparkling wine from Penedès with its terroir and its vintages, with purity, elegance, tension and with a Mediterranean and saline seal.
According to Ton Mata, CEO and member of the third generation of the family that owns this Sant Sadurní d'Anoia winery, the first vintage of Turó d'en Mota was “the result of fierce nonconformity.” It was born from the conviction that the Penedès sparkling wines could aspire to be top-level and that they would "elevate the particularities of the territory without complexes." It was created as a DO Cava with more than 100 months of aging in the bottle in contact with its lees. , and today it is marketed under the European collective brand Corpinnat.
The Master of Wine Pedro Ballesteros defined it as the Romanée Conti, the Burgundy vineyard where one of the most desired and expensive wines in the world, from Penedès, is born; and the influential publication The Wine Advocate has even awarded it 97 points (99 by the Spanish Guía Peñín). Even La Revue des Vins de France has highlighted Recaredo as a pioneer in the commitment to estate or site ('cru') sparkling wines in Catalonia.
Speaking to La Vanguardia's Comer channel, Ton Mata explains that “imagining the future of Turó de Mota de Recaredo is imagining the value of Penedès. It is highlighting the best corners, the most unique vineyards and the unique plots. It is talking about the fusion between time, variety and man.” He remarks that “Turó d'en Mota began as an intuition whose limits we did not know. Therefore, the future is synonymous with exploration. How far does the passage of time take us? This is the big question". In this sense he points out that “the future, speaking of wine, refers us to the concept of time. And not because we simply want to make a record of long aging, but because wine requires time.” And he believes that now “the time has come, perhaps, to reinterpret, once again, the signs of time…”.
Yesterday Ton Mata recalled that when “the great opportunity” arose to acquire the Turó d’en Mota vineyard, he spent two months without sleeping. In these 25 harvests he revealed that they have come to hate nature, and have understood that "you cannot work against it." The dining room director and sommelier of El Celler de Can Roca, Josep Roca, who yesterday ate for the first time in the dining room of his restaurant at an event during the service, defined the Turó d'en Mota as “impressive, authentic and singular.”
The most emotional moment came with some words from Ton Mata's father, which raised endearing and prolonged applause. Antoni Mata was moved while he said that “Turó d’ in Mota broke the mold without us being aware of it,” and he was proud that this sparkling wine had been “a source of inspiration for the sector.” Prominent winemakers such as Sara Pérez, Ester Nin, María José López de Heredia, David Léclapart and Marisol Bueno and her daughter Vicky Mareque were invited to the event.
The vineyard where the grapes are born is defined by Recaredo as “a true natural heritage.” It is added that Turó d'en Mota is one of the few old vineyards that survive in the Penedès. Planted in 1940, the Turó d'en Mota vineyard is located in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, at the foot of a hill from which it takes its name and which is crowned by a lush Mediterranean forest of pines and shrubs. The particularities of this vineyard lie in a soil with an abundant presence of calcareous nodules and a northeast exposure, which promotes a slower vegetative cycle.
The vines are formed in a glass, and the plot consists of an area of 0.97 hectares. It was a “practically forgotten” vineyard. At the end of the 90s of the last century, the Mata family had the opportunity to “discover it and value it by producing the first sparkling wine made from 100% - the first single-plot sparkling wine in the entire State... Uprooting a vine would be like uprooting ourselves,” explains Ton Mata.
With the complicity of his brother Josep and his father Josep Mata Capellades, Antoni Mata Casanova, Ton's father, was the architect of the commitment to produce long-aged and Brut Nature style cavas, with the Reserva Particular de Recaredo (1962) as a spearhead. “An infinite curiosity and extraordinary lucidity drove Antoni Mata to support the innovations that the family proposed to advance the winery, with daring ideas for the time such as the introduction of bocoyes in the fermentation process of the cava base wine or the exploration of the long aging in the bottle in order to create sparkling wines ideal to pair with gastronomy, his great passion,” according to Recaredo. Open to evolution and continuous changes, Antoni Mata prioritized staying faithful to the use of natural cork stoppers for the second aging of the entire Recaredo sparkling wine collection.
As a result of respect and admiration for local wines, Antoni and the Recaredo family directed the steps of the winery towards the production of vintage sparkling wines capable of talking about unique plots and estates with special characteristics. In fact, he defended the old vineyards not only as the natural heritage of Penedès, but also as a symbol of time and the constancy rooted in the land.
This also led him to promote the preservation of the old Xarel·lo and Macabeo vineyards that give rise to the Recaredo Private Reserve. He valued the vines by age and soil typology more than by their productive capacity. And as a great symbol of this preservation is the vineyard that gives rise to its most iconic sparkling wine, Turó d'en Mota. Antoni Mata himself, who did not want to miss any of the 25 harvests of this great sparkling wine, exclaimed that “we cannot uproot this vineyard!”
