Meritxell Palleja 'Magran' Priorat 2015

Magran by Meritxell Palleja is an unctuous, terroir-driven wine made from 100% Grenache. It has beautiful aromas of wild black cherry, balsamic notes, Mediterranean herbs, ripe red fruit and toasted oak notes. The grapes come from a steep, terraced vineyard in Partida Les Manyetes de Gratallops, which sits on hard black slate soil and was planted in 2008. It has a wonderful aspect, picking up the sun all day long. The wine is aged in French oak for 13 months.

Having spent 15 years working under the renowned Alvaro Palacios, Meritxell Palleja decided to go her own way and put all her efforts into her own small project, which she had been working on for several years and had called Nita, named after her grandmother’s house. Nita is a wine which Meritxell had first made in 2004 from small parcels of grapes which she had bought from family and friends. The project grew over the years by acquiring vineyards with her partner and brother, and in 2015 they finally built their own winery in Gratallops.

In addition to Nita, Meritxell also bottles three single-vineyard wines along with a little white wine. The vineyards have their own unique characteristics but the presence of licorella, as it is known in Catalan, is present in all of them. It is a reddish-black slate that is unique to the area. As a result of working with Domaine Leflaive in her early years, Meritxell is a strong believer in Biodynamics and therefore, like most good winemakers, works tirelessly to maintain healthy, living vineyards.