Orto Vins ‘Blanc d’Orto Brisat Montsant 2022

The meticulous, eccentric, and dedicated Joan Asens runs the show at Orto Vins. He has been an influential wine authority in Catalunya for more than two decades, and as a professor of lunar cycles at the local winemaking University in Falset.

Asens is widely considered a “guru of biodynamics.” With a vibrancy and freshness unmatched in the DO, his seamless wines generally have a brighter finish, lower alcohol, and softer, floral, even elegant tannins than his neighbors.

The d’Orto Brisat hails from 80-year-old vines that are organically and biodynamically farmed. Joan and her crew are meticulous viticulturalists to the point of hand-picking out every raisin out of each cluster to ensure freshness, prior to harvest of the dry wines – like a sweet green harvest.

After tinkering with the formula for years, he has it down to a science like everything else. We’re talking 70% destemming and 30% whole cluster. Then, 30% of the juice remains in contact with 100% of the skins from the first saignée of Blanc, which protects the remaining juice from oxidation for another 7-8 days and allows all the fermentation to begin. There’s a long process to these beautiful wines, and no one is better suited for the job than Joan Asens.