Paquito El Chocolatero

Paquito El Chocolatero is a wine that smells and tastes of the Mediterranean, of nature and tradition; a well-made Monastrell, rounded off with some lovely Garnacha, which makes for easy drinking. It is light, with fresh aromas appearing spicy in the foreground, and gradually begins to open up in the glass so as to exhibit rather sweet and creamy notes. The nose it displays is very polished, Mediterranean (fine herbs) and clean; an elegant nose showing a spot of warmth, with delicate notes of pine nuts, syrup and dark chocolate; this is a fairly complex, serious wine, definitely one to consider.

On the palate it is pleasant and rounded, juicy and fruit-forward, of medium intensity and good structure; the aftertaste concludes with no rough edges or bitterness, and it has notable persistence. A homogenous and extremely pleasant blend and - an observation shared by several of us who tasted it - a wine that still retains its attributes after having been opened for a couple of days, which proves to us its quality.

This delightful wine is, moreover, one of the results of a project which goes far beyond the production of a good wine: with the help of Marc and Adriá Pérez (the famous 'Les Cousins' of the Priorat), the wine producer, Celler La Muntanya, is a Micro-vineyard Project; in other words, a project which seeks to recuperate and regenerate vineyards planted on small, family-owned plots of land, and which promotes a more humane economic model, committed both to the ecosystem in the immediate vicinity (the protection of the environment and of the indigenous varieties) as well as the economy and culture of the Comtat district. And a final detail, the reason for the label: Paquito El Chocolatero is made in part using grapes from a “micro-vineyard” owned by the son of Gustavo Pascual Falcó, the composer who wrote the famous ‘paso doble’ of the same name, a musical piece indispensable to the Moors and Christians festivals so popular in the area. A complete wine in all aspects.