The place where the Rosemary grows

My memory is unfairly bad - and highly selective. But there's one moment from last year that I remember vividly. I finally got to taste a wine I'd been dreaming of for years.

It started innocently. I brought a bottle of Cuvée Romanissa 2021 to serve blindly in Lo, and after that, a friend casually mentioned he had a bottle of 2012. Just like that. No big deal. Oh, and he could bring it next time. Long story short, we went for it immediately - and Eugene suggested we also take a bottle of Rouge 2014 from his cellar alongside for comparison. Who says no to that?

Both wines were stunning. Deep, structured, almost brooding - like they had more in common with Montalcino or Piedmont than with the usual image of young red Matassa. Even Vasyl, who's usually freakishly good at blind tasting, struggled to pin them down.

Good memories tend to stay. And since then, Serhii and I haven't stopped hunting for older reds from Matassa. Eventually, something came through, and here we are - with a full vertical dedicated to Cuvée Romanissa. We're starting with the just-released 2023 (conveniently available at Sabotage right now - and yes, you can use the barberry20{.verbatim} code to get 20% off most wines under 3300 UAH - only on purchases from their site). Then we go deep: 2019, 2014, 2013, and even 2006.

To ease into it all - because the weather called for it - we're starting the evening with a fresh skin-contact white from Tom Lubbe. You know, just to stretch the palate.

At this point, I'm not going to repeat the whole story about Tom - if you've followed us, you've heard it before. If not, I've compiled a dedicated page with some information.

But let's talk Romanissa. As far as I understand, in Catalan, "Romanissa" is a dialectal or regional word for rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) - specifically the kind that grows wild, fierce, and fragrant. It's a variant of the standard Catalan word "romaní". This ties in nicely if we're dealing with a wine or place name (like Cuvée Romanissa) - it likely refers to "the place of rosemary" or "the place where the rosemary grows". The name makes sense. It's a wine born on red schist soils, soaked in sun and iron. In most vintages, it's 100% Lledoner Pelut - the "hairy" Grenache, native to this part of the world. Some sources say it's blended with Carignan, and maybe that's true in some years. Honestly, I've seen so many conflicting details online that I stopped trying to fact-check. Either Tom deliberately throws people off, or each vintage has its own story. At least, the counter label of 2006 vintage tells that it was a blend of Grenache Noir (70%), Carignan (15%), Mourvedre (10%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (5%).

But really, this isn't a wine about technique. It's about how it tastes - and how it makes you feel.

So if this kind of thing speaks to you, keep an eye on future announcements. Sooner or later, we'll do a vertical of his Rouge too. You'll want to be there.

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