Valentí Llagostera of Mas Doix understands the concept of terroir. I was fortunate to spend a day with him during a recent visit to Priorat with the Wine School. Valentí’s family has been in the wine trade for five generations. He came to wine as a business later in life. He was a director at the University of Barcelona. He earned his master’s in economics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, in the late eighties.
His family has deep roots in winemaking in Priorat. As a boy, he worked at his family’s winery during summer vacation. It was a small winery with roots that went back to 1850. That changed in the late ’90s. At the time, all of the family’s grapes went to the local cooperative, of which Josep was the president.
Valentí Llagostera, his brother Ramón and his cousin Josep María Doix founded the modern winery in 1998 and started bottling their own Mas Doix. Within a few years, the winery was being heralded as one of the top wineries in Priorat. Unfortunately, Ramon, the winemaker, sadly passed away recently. His daughter Sandra Doix has taken over as senior winemaker.
Wine Review: Mas Doix 2006 “Costers de Vinyes Velles” Priorat
Exquisite perfume of wilted roses, red fruit, and crushed stone. Flavors of fresh plum and blackberry are bold and expressive. Spicy rosemary and allspice draw into anise and vanilla and then into smoke. Finally, the flavors evolve into fresh minerals, wildflower, and bright red fruit. Rich and powerful, this wine offers power and wonderful complexity. Aged in French oak for a year and a half, this Mas Doix bottling blend of Garnacha and Carinena, with an average vine age of 80 years.