{"id":27395,"date":"2017-06-01T14:51:07","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T13:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leaandsandeman.co.uk\/blog\/?p=27395"},"modified":"2017-06-08T15:26:24","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T14:26:24","slug":"albert-jane-ubeda-acustic-autocton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leaandsandeman.co.uk\/blog\/2017\/06\/albert-jane-ubeda-acustic-autocton\/","title":{"rendered":"Music to our ears – Albert Jan\u00e9 Ubeda of Ac\u00fastic and Aut\u00f2cton Cellers visits London"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AlbertLast week we had the absolute pleasure of welcoming Albert Jan\u00e9 Ubeda from Ac\u00fastic<\/a> & Aut\u00f2cton<\/a> Cellers for two days of trade visits and a private client dinner at the wonderful Canham<\/a> in East Sheen – see pictures below. For those of you that have met Albert you will know what an absolute legend he is and how incredible his wines are. Albert\u2019s approach to winemaking is very refreshing. He only uses indigenous varieties (Aut\u00f2cton is taken from the word autochthonous reflecting the indigenous varieties used). It\u2019s something close to his heart and it makes perfect sense. Why use other varieties when you have beautiful ones on your doorstep? Much like British restaurants championing British produce. Albert told us last week that if you have good vines you\u2019ll make good wine. Perhaps a slightly modest view of his skills as a winemaker but one that is held by many of our producers. Minimal intervention, no pesticides and wild ferments are all part and parcel of his winemaking techniques. The wines are brilliant and truly reflective of their terroir.<\/p>\n

Albert started helping on his family\u2019s vineyard when he was 14. It\u2019s in his blood. Although he has now come back to the family home in Pened\u00e8s to produce his Aut\u00f2cton wines (more on this below) he decided that he wanted to branch out. This led to the founding of Ac\u00fastic in Montsant and in 2004 the first vintage of Ac\u00fastic red & Brao were produced. In 2007, a very small quantity of Auditori was released. This was Albert\u2019s foray into a single-vineyard, single-varietal wine. The result \u2013 Magiques! A few years later he stumbled across a plot of old vine Garnacha Blanca and Macabeo. The first vintage was the 2009 and it was released to critical acclaim. He told us that the 2009 is still drinking superbly well so if you have some in the cellar crack open a bottle and see how well it is developing. A quick note on the name Ac\u00fastic; it relates to the wines being unplugged, not amplified by lots of manipulation. There is a pure harmony to them. There\u2019s also a small ode to his passion for music. He told me that he finds music very emotional and he feels that making and drinking wine can be very emotional too. I think that is something that we can all relate to.<\/p>\n

We have been working with Albert since his 2005 vintage and have always been a huge advocate of his approach to winemaking. The varieties, as mentioned above, are all indigenous to the area. Garnacha & Carignan make up the red production and Garnacha Blanca & Macabeo the white. All the vines are between 30 and 105 years old and are planted on harsh, stony soils of sand stones and clay. Working organically since his first vintage in 2004, all the grapes are hand-picked. Vinification is traditional (small wooden press), there is a very prudent use of oak ‘a good barrel is a barrel you cannot taste’ says Albert, it should ‘help the wine express itself not actually add its own mark to the juice’. All wines are then bottled without fining or filtration. The result \u2013 wonderful expressions of local varieties at their very best.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to September 2016, after many wonderful vintages of Ac\u00fastic wines and we get an e-mail from Albert telling us he has been working on a new project. Exciting. Of course, these are his Aut\u00f2cton wines. The vines are in the DOs of Tarragona and Penedes (60km south of Montsant) but, as Albert explains, \u2018I don\u2019t care about DO I am looking for very very exciting vineyards\u2019. Being part of a DO would be too restrictive to what Albert is doing here. The whites are made with very old vine Xarel lo, Xarel lo Vermell, Macabeu and Malvasia de Sitges and the reds from old vine Sumoll and Ull de Llebre (Tempranillo). These are very obscure varieties (by name at least). Certainly, not blends I have seen before. The Autocton wines are aged in a mixture of large oak barrels and stainless steel while the Gran Aut\u00f2ctons (grapes from older vines) see a longer proportion of ageing in large oak barrels as well as time in small clay Amphora – currently these are from the South of France. However, Albert is looking to have some made locally from the soils that are present in the vineyards. Quite an exciting prospect. The resulting wines are very different in style to those of Ac\u00fastic. They feel lighter on the palate. That\u2019s not to say they lack complexity. Quite the opposite. The Gran Autoctons should age very well. This is a very exciting project and one that we are over the moon to be bringing in to the UK. Albert now bases himself at the family home, the old Masia, which is above the cellers of Aut\u00f2cton. If you ever get the chance to visit Aut\u00f2cton you\u2019ll get to meet Chipirones \u2013 the resident rooster. Apparently, he is quite the character. So much so that his image has made it onto the label of the Aut\u00f2cton wines.<\/p>\n

One could go on and on about the joys of Albert\u2019s wines, what a charming man he is and how infectious his passion for winemaking is. These attributes really shine through in his wines. If you have old vintages of Ac\u00fastic (white & red), Brao and Auditori in the cellar there\u2019s no rush to drink them. However, if you have more than a bottle tucked away it would be well worth your time to crack one open and see how wonderfully it is developing.
\n\"Acustic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week we had the absolute pleasure of welcoming Albert Jan\u00e9 Ubeda from Ac\u00fastic & Aut\u00f2cton Cellers for two days of trade visits and a private client dinner at the wonderful Canham in East Sheen – see pictures below. For those of you that have met Albert you will know what an absolute legend he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":27399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,168,451,106],"tags":[170,1045],"class_list":["post-27395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ls-post","category-monsant","category-spain-red-wine","category-spain","tag-acustic-celler","tag-autocton"],"contentshake_article_id":"","yoast_head":"\nMusic to our ears - Albert Jan\u00e9 Ubeda of Ac\u00fastic and Aut\u00f2cton Cellers visits London<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last week we had the absolute pleasure of welcoming Albert Jan\u00e9 Ubeda from Ac\u00fastic & Aut\u00f2cton Cellers for two days of trade visits and a private\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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