Born in 1967 in the commune of Parthenay (in the French department of Deux-Sèvres, in the New Aquitaine region), sommelier Isabelle Brunet practically grew up among the pots, plates and glasses of the Chez N’Zôt restaurant they ran his parents Micheline and Pierre in the town of Vausseroux.
The restaurant was his first contact with wine at the young age of 8 years old. At the age of 12 she was already working as a waitress in the family establishment. In October 2004, the businessman, winemaker (Ferrer-Bobet del Priorat) and wine lover Sergi Ferrer-Salat signed her and for years he worked to launch the great Monvínic wine temple on Diputació street in Barcelona (it opened its doors in 2008). , where for 7 years she worked as a sommelier and head of wine purchasing.
After a break of just over half a year to work on a personal project in France, she returned to Monvínic as restaurant director and to lead the team of sommeliers. She was nominated in 2013 and 2020 as best sommelier by the Royal Academy of Gastronomy; and she collected the award for best room director in 2018, awarded to her by the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition. The red wines of the Loire (from Saumur, Bourgueil and Chinon) are its weaknesses. He is also captivated by Galician wines and those from the Canary Islands with their unique volcanic soils. She is moved by them and feels great respect, at the same time, for those raised under organic breeding and dry oxidatives.
Between April 2000 and September 2001 he worked as a sommelier at the El Bulli restaurant, and between November 2001 and June 2004 at the Lavinia specialty store in Barcelona. Motivated to learn more, Isabelle Brunet took a fifteen-month trip to the world’s vineyards, visiting South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Cuba, Spain, Portugal, Italy and France. She and she worked in wine bars during part of her travels.
Despite this, Monvínic has focused his professional life until its closure on Friday, March 13, 2020. And after a time of reflection, he has now launched into elaboration. It has just been released with two wines from the 2022 vintage: the Massís red 2022 (90% Garnacha Tinta and 10% Cariñena) and a white from Xarel·lo (50%), Xarel·lo vermell (25%) and malvasia from Sitges (25%).
On his Instagram account he reveals, in French, that “wine only has value if it is shared.” The French singer-songwriter Georges Brassens already said that “the best wine is not necessarily the most expensive, but the one that is shared.” But the Irish writer James Joyce asked himself, “What is better than sitting down at the end of the day and drinking wine with friends, or a substitute for friends?”
Isabelle Brunet had the itch to make wine for a long time and now she has given free rein to her oenological concerns with a very personal project in the Garraf limestone massif, at Finca Viladellops by Marcelo Desvalls. She was very clear, from the beginning, that she wanted to work with native varieties to make Mediterranean wines. She has set herself the goal of “capturing the authenticity of Garraf in each cluster and enclosing its unique essence in each bottle.”
He states that “Garraf is very special as a subzone of the Penedès DO.” And he adds that “it is a miraculous enclave that was under water 18,000 years ago.”
In fact, the Garraf and the Penedès were submerged by an inland sea of ??warm waters. Isabelle Brunet explains that “it is an impressive coastal mountain range,” and that “this exceptional terroir is distinguished by its calcareous soils and the mark left by marine fossils.”
It markets its wines, however, without DO. It has just been released with 650 bottles of its white and 450 of its red. Both are offered at a price of 35 euros. With the 2023 vintage, it will have a significant increase in bottles of its white. Looking to the future, he has proposed “working more on the farm to select the best grapes.”
The Massís brand has been given to Jose Gallego Martínez, co-owner of the Marejol restaurant in Vilanova i la Geltrú, with the express desire that the brand be preserved to label wines made in Garraf. He now combines winemaking with specific orders he receives as a sommelier, and is part of the wine tourism team at the Finca Viladellops winery, where he also offers tastings. They work following the dictates of organic farming, and harvest their grapes by hand. They select the berries carefully both in the vineyard and in the winery. He works side by side with the Finca Viladellops winemaker, Carlos Nieto Pardal, with whom he has established a special complicity.
The grapes of their white Massís undergo a pre-fermentation maceration in the same press, using grapes previously cooled in a cold room at a temperature between 3 and 5º C to preserve the aromatic precursors. The alcoholic fermentation is carried out with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel tanks, at a controlled temperature of 16º C. The wine is aged for 6 months in demijohns of 54 liters capacity, completely filled to avoid oxidation. They work with very low doses of added sulfur.
The 2022 white Massís Isabelle Brunet is presented with a label that emphasizes, in Catalan, that it is a chalky wine from Garraf. It is straw yellow in color, clear and bright. It is floral and slightly aromatic. It shows a profusion of ripe fruit (apple and peach) and white flower, with a remarkable note reminiscent of fennel. It presents 12º of well-integrated alcohol, a pleasant glyceric tactile sensation and good acidity, which gives it tension.
It also stands out with a saline bottom and, above all, for its balance. It is a very transparent wine with its varieties and its origin. Isabelle Brunet likes to pair this white with sea urchins, with a vitello tonnato, with grilled red prawns from the Marejol restaurant or with Loire pike with white butter that her mother Micheline still occasionally cooks.
The red wine has a medium-low layer and is ruby ??in color. It reveals notes of rose and fresh, acidic red fruit (sour strawberries, watermelon and pomegranate), with a touch of green tannins provided by the carignan. It has good acidity and is fluid and drinkable, very enjoyable. It is something rustic but modern at the same time. The wood (a third of the wine was aged in a 5-year-old French oak barrel) is very well integrated. The rest of the wine rested in demijohns.