Sileo Montsant Offers High Elevation Freshness & Elegance at A Great Price
To a select group of visionaries, Montsant isn't just a foil to Priorat, whose dramatic slopes it surrounds like a ring — it has its own story to tell. And to the talented Agusti Torello (of AT Roca and Anima Mundi), Montsant truly warrants a spotlight of its own.
That's exactly what Agusti has done with Companyia Vitícola Sileo, which he founded to highlight the highest-elevation and most diverse terroir in Montsant. Here, in the village of Cornudella de Montsant, at the feet of the Serra de Montsant and Muntanyes de Prades mountain ranges, he discovered a tapestry of exposures and elevations dotted with healthy vineyards on calcareous clay and racorell slate.
Agusti's reverence for these old vines is clear: "Sileo" is a reference to the Carthusian monks (yes, the guys who brought you Chartreuse), who laid the region's viticultural groundwork, and their sacred vow of silence. They saw the untapped potential in these striking hills, but it would take centuries, and years after the Priorat boom, for the region to find the serious momentum it's just beginning to enjoy today.
Our newsletter offering this week, a traditional 90% Garnatxa, 10% Cariñena blend, shows joyful cranberry, tarragon and brambly currant notes as well as the trademark minerality so central to the wine identity of this beautiful part of the world. We featured 'Sileo' in a recent Catalonian Flatiron Wine School class, where it held its own next to a benchmark Priorat more than twice its price.
Sileo, Montsant 'Sileo', 2021 $22.99
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