Dear Wine Lover,
Best known as the birthplace of Salvador Dalí and home to the famous “El Bulli” restaurant (which is rumored to be reopening), Empordà is a beautiful coastal region in the northeast corner of Spain.

Nearly 20 years ago, while hiking through the Empordà's Cap de Creus National Park, winemaker Anna Espelt stumbled upon a parcel of neglected vineyards. As you can see in this photo, some of the vines at this picturesque site are a literal stone's throw from the Mediterranean Sea.
After completing her hike, Anna could not get this ancient vineyard site out of her mind. Returning to the land over and over, she found evidence that it had been occupied, and likely farmed, for over 3,000 years!

For an environmentally and historically minded winemaker like Anna, the challenge and opportunity were too thrilling to resist. She made arrangements to acquire the vineyards and went to work.

Today, we bring you the first vintages from this project to make their way to America, a red and a white that we’re as excited about as any Spanish wines we’ve tasted in years! Earning a wonderfully passionate 93 Points on our scale, the 2019 Anna Espelt "Pla De Gates" Garnatxa Negre tastes like a pure and serious Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Her 2019 Blanc comes across as a velvety and viscous Châteauneuf Blanc.

These wines are delicious. To say they have a sense of place, well, that's the understatement of the year. After tasting samples, we had these cases shipped directly from Spain. You certainly won't find them at the corner wine store. Read on for the rest of the story, then click the Big Yellow Button to experience a taste of what Anna saw on that hike!
D'Vine Affair 2022
An online wine event hosted by Peggy Kusinski!
We've been partnering with the Glunz family for over a decade on their annual D'Vine Affair tasting. Held to raise funds for the Catholic Charities' Self-Sufficiency Programs, it is a great wine tasting that benefits a very worthwhile and important cause.

This year's D'Vine Affair will be held online, hosted by sportscaster Peggy Kusinski. In the write-up for the event, it is billed as a "virtual" tasting. That's a bit misleading, there is nothing virtual about the wine component. Everyone who signs up will get three bottles of wine and three bottles of beer!

The 2022 D'Vine Affair will be held on Saturday, January 29th, beginning at 5:15 PM. Once you sign up, the wine and beer can be picked up as soon as tomorrow at any of our Vin Chicago stores. This is a really fun way to support these valuable social services programs. Click here to join in the fun. We look forward to seeing you online!
2019 Anna Espelt "Pla de Gates" Garnatxa Negre
Empordà, Catalonia, Spain
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Though the vineyard picture is stunning, it hardly begins to do justice to the unique beauty of the landscape. While located in a national park, humans have been living and interacting with this old land for thousands and thousands of years.

"What might seem like a relic of a glacier is, in fact, a standing stone erected by human hands over 4000 years ago for some long-forgotten purpose. With Anna’s dedication to organic and regenerative farming, these vineyards can once again be brought into balance with the surrounding flora and fauna."

The best part of this story, however, is the quality of the wine. This 2019 Pla de Gates Red is 100% Lledoner Negre which is the local name for Garnacha, or Garnatxa in the local Catalan dialect. It is fan-frickin-tastic!

Deftly balanced, this youthful, transparent, purple-ruby hued red checks in at a powerful 15% ABV. The bright red fruits and peppery-earth flavors leap from the glass! The wine is both civilized and confident, giving tightly wound, Rhône-esque red berry and floral notes. Sufficient oxygen exposure will allow you to be treated to wild strawberry, black cherry and cassis along with daphne and lilac floral notes, and red and black rock minerals. All accented by the tell-tale white pepper of Garnacha and a subtle salinity that is testimony to this unique terroir.

Planted to the sites granite and sand soils, the certified organic vines are harvested by hand. Gently pressed, the grapes are fermented using only wild yeasts, with no additives of any kind. Anna is deeply committed to hands-off, natural processes in both farming and winemaking, and utilizes neutral oak vats and casks. The resulting wine is pure, energized and totally fresh.

Finishing quite long, with medium-plus tannins and acidity, this will make for an exceptional evening paired with ribs, lamb or herb-rubbed roast chicken. Delicious now and even better two to three years down the road, it is a strong 93 points on our scale. It’s hard to believe this is only $23.99!

We don’t make the comparison to a $40 Châteauneuf-du-Pape lightly. This wine is something very special. Looking online, the only places we were able to find it is at two stores in New York. Our price beats theirs, but that's not the real story. The wine is extraordinary, and it comes from an extraordinary place. Check out a few bottles before our supply disappears!

Vin Chicago Price: 23.99
2020 Anna Espelt "Pla de Gates" Blanc
Empordà, Catalonia, Spain
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A blend of 80% Lledoner Blanc (Garnatxa Blanca) and 20% Lledoner Roig (Garnatxa Gris), this truly drinks like a Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc. The texture is wonderfully pleasing, a velvet viscous richness that - at only 13% ABV - is balanced by tense acidity. We love the flavors of ripe citrus, yellow apple, peach, white plum, yellow flowers, vanilla bean and rounded stone minerality.

The eye-catching labels on her wines hint at the complex and delicious wines inside the bottle! These wines are the total package.

Medium-plus in body, it is both fat and fresh, with a sexy feel that is really fun. Like the red wine, this one benefits from oxygen, showing even more flavor and structure after extensive decanting. A delicious 92 points on the Vin Chicago scale, our sample bottle lasted over a week, with no signs of tiring.

Supply here is even more limited than the red. Drink now and over the coming five years with tuna steak, white bean soup or all by itself!

Vin Chicago Price: 23.99
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