The Catalan scorpion

Tasting the scorpion: a Maury selection

2014 Légende, Mas Amiel

This blend of 80 per cent Grenache and 20 per cent Carignan, planted in 1949 in a sloping calc-schist vineyard of clay-gravel texture called Cabirou Nord at 180 m, is entirely aged in concrete. It’s a clear red in colour, with warm, perfumed scents of gentle plum and wild flowers. The palate opens gently and builds with seamless aromatic grace. There are both cherry and plum fruits, fine grain spice, crushed plants; it has poise and freshness, too, and finishes cleanly and refreshingly, with springy tannins: a perfect liquid oval. This is a lighter wine than the dense 2012 vintage, and slightly less perfumed than the 2013, but commanding and complete, too, with perfect terroir expression. 95

2014 Vers le Nord, Mas Amiel

This comes from a cool, north-facing parcel at 160 m called Devèze, on mixed soils (calc-schist and limestone with iron-rich clays). It’s a site where Syrah does perform well (10 per cent; the rest is old-vine Grenache); again, all the ageing is in concrete. A still more perfumed wine this year than the Légende, with grave, pure, refined flavours and a dry yet lingeringly floral finish. (The 2013 vintage, by the way, is also extraordinarily silky and alluring, with its Syrah component working overtime; the 2012 is a little grippier, but once again aromatically intricate.) 93

2013 Mas de la Devèze

Very darkly coloured, with lifted scents of pounded rock, ground coffee and wild mint. On the palate, this chewy, deep, concentrated, tapering away towards herbal bitterness at the end, but with intensely fruit-saturated acidity (dry cherry and dry plum). A wine of magnificent architecture – as, indeed, is the no-less-impressive 2012 vintage. 92

2013 CuvéeMontpin, Domaine de Pouderoux

This is a light, elegant, high-altitude wine with a creamy sweetness to it; on the palate it is pure, elegant, very mineral, with a little breezy austerity in the finish. 90

2013 Kerbuccio, Ch de St Roch

A primary style of scent with an excitingly earthy, doughy style, and packed with red summer fruits and a little apricot, too. On the palate, it is smooth, lush, warm, velvety and generously fleshed, both sweet yet dry, though it has less stony asperity than some of its peers. 90

2012 Bastoul-Laffite, Domaine de Soulanes

Tasted 18 months ago, this was a wine of admirable aromatic precision on the nose: blackcurrant and plum, but also wilder damson, sloe and elderberry. The fruit has now eased back a little, and savoury notes are creeping into the wine. On the palate, it is astonishingly penetrating, long and dramatic, with soaring depths of dry plum, dry cherry and wild plants, and its acidity intensely and thrillingly fruited. 93

2014 Rocher des Buis, Vignerons de Tautavel-Vingrau

An uncomplicated, inexpensive but attractive Maury Sec: typically sweet Grenache fruits lent class by spice, stone and herb freshness, with a pungent, almost crunchy palate which seems to combine cherry, plum and lemon, full of solar energy. 89