El Escocés Volante Dos Dedos de Frente Syrah Viognier 2022, Calatayud

Dos Dedos de Frente is El Escocés Volante’s Rhône-inspired red, a Syrah co-fermented with a small proportion of Viognier, made by Scottish Master of Wine Norrel Robertson in Aragón. It comes from a single estate, Finca del Val in Villarroya de la Sierra, planted in 2000 at around 950 metres on limestone, red clay and stony ‘pudding stone’ soils. The grapes are picked by hand into small cases and chilled, then given a cold soak before fermentation with punch-downs. The Syrah and Viognier are picked and fermented together, a technique borrowed from the northern Rhône, and the wine is then aged for over a year in mostly older oak barrels. The name is a Spanish expression, literally ‘two fingers of forehead’, meaning a bit of common sense.

In the glass it is deep, with a purple rim. The nose is lifted and perfumed, with violets over black fruit and cassis, black olive and savoury, meaty hints. The palate is full-bodied, ripe and supple, with black cherry fruit, fine-grained tannins, well-integrated oak and a long finish with a touch of spice.

Serve at around 16–18°C. It is made for hearty food: try it with steaks, lamb, game, ragù, casseroles and hard cheeses. It drinks well now and will keep for several years in a cool place.

El Escocés Volante, ‘the Flying Scotsman’, is the family wine company of Norrel Robertson MW, run with Sharon Robertson in Calatayud, Aragón. Born in Dundee and raised in Scotland, Norrel worked in the wine trade before learning winemaking from the cellar up in Chianti, Portugal, Australia, France and Chile. He became a Master of Wine in 2000 and moved to Spain in 2003, where the old Garnacha vineyards of Calatayud inspired him to start making his own wines. He works with old, dry-grown vines at altitude around villages such as Villarroya de la Sierra, Cervera de la Cañada and Torralba de Ribota, focusing on native varieties, above all Garnacha. The vineyards have been farmed organically since 2014, without irrigation or pesticides, and the team turns vine prunings into biochar and uses labels made from sugar cane and hemp paper.