Grans Muralles 2020, Best Catalan Wine Winner at Premios Vinari

Grans Muralles was named Best Catalan Wine at Premios Vinari, a distinction that offers a tangible confirmation of the success of our project to recover the ancestral grape varieties of Catalonia.

• Familia Torres celebrates a big win at Premios Vinari, the leading competition for Catalan wines, with Grans Muralles 2020 taking home the award for Catalonia’s best wine. In addition to the highest honour, the Conca de Barberà red also received the Gran Oro prize in the age-worthy reds category at the 13th edition of the awards. This year saw the highest participation to date, with 912 wines in competition, evaluated by a professional jury in a blind tasting. 

“Grans Muralles is very important to us, because it was the first wine born from our project to recover ancestral Catalan varieties, which my father initiated and we, the fifth generation, continue to pursue with great conviction to find forgotten varieties that could help us in tackling climate change. I would like to thank winemaker Albert Llopart and Montse Torres, who heads the project, and the entire team, which has worked so hard to get it off the ground and moving forward.”
Mireia Torres, Director of Knowledge and Innovation

Grans Muralles alongside the Premios Vinari Best Wine award

• This marks the second occasion that a Familia Torres wine wins the award for best Catalan wine. The first was in 2021 when Purgatori 2017 (DO Costers del Segre) took home the top prize.  The Premios Vinari awards have recognized excellence in Catalan winemaking for the past 13 years. Helmed by sommelier Ramon Roset, the competition has consolidated its leading position in the country’s vinicultural landscape, celebrating the diversity and quality of Catalan still and sparkling wines.

The Wine’s History

• The vineyard takes its name from the great walls built by the Cistercian monks during the 15th century and is nestled into a magical, mountainous enclave – one that is steeped in a rich history. The vineyard lies along a route of historical monuments that connects Milmanda Castle and the Poblet Monastery. 
• The captivating personality of these enclaves derives from cross-cultural exchange, the vicissitudes of war, and monastic vinicultural practices – places marked by a past that shaped modern viticulture and wine tourism, making them shared spaces of knowledge and communion.  It is the ideal setting to sow the seeds and visions of the future. A place where old and new coincide, what was and what is to come. A place like life itself.
• The captivating personality of these enclaves derives from cross-cultural exchange, the vicissitudes of war, and monastic vinicultural practices – places marked by a past that shaped modern viticulture and wine tourism, making them shared spaces of knowledge and communion.  It is the ideal setting to sow the seeds and visions of the future. A place where old and new coincide, what was and what is to come. A place like life itself.

The Grans Muralles vineyard set against the historical 15th-century walls

Grans Muralles: The Wine

• Echoes of the past meld with the latest innovations to bring us a wine of deep, complex aromas:

Spices (pepper and clove), aromatic herbs like bay leaf and thyme, as well as exuberant, very ripe red fruit with notes of smoke and vanilla coming through. The tannins are densely woven yet sweet, leaving a long-lasting, intense impression on the palate. Opulent and fleshy, Grans Muralles seduces both palate and soul.

 Grans Muralles 2020 from DO Conca de Barberà

Conca de Barberà: The Appellation of Origin (D.O.)

• The DO Conca de Barberà was established in 1985 and comprises around 3,000 hectares of vineyards in the north of Tarragona province. Elevations range from 350 to 900 metres. The appellation essentially falls within a region whose geological formation derives from the erosive force of the Francolí River and its tributary Anguera.

• Considering climate-change-related effects, Conca de Barberà has a Mediterranean climate with certain particularities derived from the mountain ranges that flank the area. Summers are very hot, winters notably cold, rainfall is scarce, albeit sufficient for the vines to thrive.

It goes without saying that Grans Muralles is one of the great icons of the Familia Torres Anthology Collection. These wines transcend the oenological to oscillate between legend and innovation, founded on a commitment to the land and imbued with an inimitable identity.