Anima Negra An/2, Baleares, Spain

黑色靈魂酒莊An/2紅葡萄酒

點擊次數：5378

The 2021 àN/2 was produced with 65% Callet, 20% Fogoneu and Mantonegro and 15% Syrah. It fermented in 4,000-liter oak vats and concrete and matured in French (60%), American (30%) and Central European (10%) barrels for 12 months. It has a moderate 13% alcohol and a pH of 3.51, with a bright ruby color and a nose with notes of smoky bacon and violets, with less influence from the barrels, which is more evident in the palate but does not overwhelm. It feels fresher than previous years. They produced some 230,000 bottles. It was bottled in March 2023.

Unfortunately, I still found the 2018 AN/2 too oaky for my taste, as the place, grape and vintage character is hidden by a generous dose of spice, toast and smoke aromas that give it a mainstream/international character. It's possibly fresher and more expressive than previous years. It fermented in concrete and 4,000-liter oak vats with selected yeasts and matured in oak barrels for one year. It's a blend of 65% Callet, 20% Fogoneu and Mantonegro and complemented with 15% Syrah. The wine shows a nice bright ruby color and wants to show the delicacy of the Majorcan grapes with a medium body and fine tannins, moderate alcohol and a nice texture, but unfortunately, it's too influenced by aromas and flavors of wood. I feel this is moving in the right direction, possibly aided by the natural conditions of the year, but the oak needs to be fine-tuned. 250,000 bottles produced. It was bottled in March 2020.

I also sampled the still-unbottled 2017 AN/2, the "second" red wine. With a production of about 20% less than normal, it comes from a challenging year, where they worked hard in the selection (they have an optical sorting table, which allowed them to select the quality of grapes they want for the wine). It is mostly Callet with small amounts of Fogoneu and Mantonegro and a touch of Syrah from slightly younger vines, so the Syrah adds color and structure. It fermented in stainless steel and concrete vats with yeasts they have isolated from their own vineyards. It aged in new, second and third use oak barrels, with a small percentage of American and Central European oak. It has a perfumed nose with plenty of lactic notes and generous spice and smoke with a touch of violets and meat, marked by the élevage in barrel. The palate is juicy and revealed fine-grained tannins and plenty of oak-related flavors. I found it quite marked by the oak. This was in a tank settling down waiting for bottling, so it's very young. They expect to fill around 200,000 bottles.

The 2016 AN/2 is from a more structured and more powerful year than 2017, so they used a higher percentage of new barrels (which I already tend to find too much for my taste), and the wine has abundant charred notes of toasted bread, smoke and spices intermixed with the berry fruit and Mediterranean herbs. There is a luxurious, creamy character in these wines, possibly from the élevage in small barrels, a significant proportion of which are new. This gives the wines a modern and international style, where I find the character of the local Mediterranean grapes gets somehow lost. It has a commercial profile that will please fans of oaky reds, in a slightly fresher style than 2017. This was an average year in production, with some 270,000 bottles.

The 2015 AN/2 is mostly Callet with small amounts of Fogoneu and Manto Negro grapes fermented in 4,000-liter oak vats and cement tanks with yeasts they have isolated from their own vineyards. It matured for 13 months in oak barrels, mostly French but with some 20% made of American oak and 10% of Central European oak, but 10% of the volume wasn't put in barrique. It's fragrant and perfumed, with generous spices and smoke, but also flowers and wild berries. It feels quite fluid, more agile, with good balance. 270,630 bottles, 4,430 magnums and some larger sizes produced.