Winemaker Notes
It combines very well with foods with floral touches, with aromatic herbs, pepper, anise or cinnamon, balsamic touches, toast or pastries, and also with robust, meaty fish.
Blend: 60% Cariñena, 40% Garnacha
Professional Ratings
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International Wine Cellar
This deeply colored Priorat is a fantastic blend of 40% Garnacha and 60% Cariñena. Forward and delicious with aromas of black plum, black cherry, cardamom and hints of milk chocolate. On the palate there are rich flavors of black cherry, roasted dates, French vanilla and choclate shavings. This continues to display decadent dark flavors while maintaining a strong mineral backbone. Delicious now and should drink beautifully well into the next decade.
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Wine & Spirits
At Buil & Giné, they describe this wine as an “introduction to Priorat” and, as a gateway, it works very well. A blend of garnacha and cariñena, it is intense in red fruit and exotic spice, with slight touches of slate. It needs at least five years to achieve its full complexity, but now, with its powerful texture, it would match well with beef brisket.
With bold fruit flavors and accents of sweet spice, Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre form the base of the classic Rhône Red Blend, while Carignan, Cinsault and Counoise often come in to play. Though they originated from France’s southern Rhône Valley, with some creative interpretation, Rhône blends have also become popular in other countries. Somm Secret—Putting their own local spin on the Rhône Red Blend, those from Priorat often include Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. In California, it is not uncommon to see Petite Sirah make an appearance.
Tiny and entirely composed of craggy, jagged and deeply terraced vineyards, Priorat is a Catalan wine-producing region that was virtually abandoned until the early 1990s. This Spanish wine's renaissance came with the arrival of one man, René Barbier, who recognized the region’s forgotten potential. He banded with five friends to create five “Clos” in the village of Gratallops. Their aim was to revive some of Priorat’s ancient Carignan vines, as well as plant new—mainly French—varieties. These winemakers were technically skilled, well-trained and locally inspired; not surprisingly their results were a far cry from the few rustic and overly fermented wines already produced.
This movement escalated Priorat’s popularity for a few reasons. Its new wines were modern and made with well-recognized varieties, namely old Carignan and Grenache blended with Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. When the demand arrived, scarcity commanded higher prices and as the region discovered its new acclaim, investors came running from near and far. Within ten years, the area under vine practically doubled.
Priorat’s steep slopes of licorella (brown and black slate) and quartzite soils, protection from the cold winds of the Siera de Monstant and a lack of water, leading to incredibly low vine yields, all work together to make the region’s wines unique. While similar blends could and are produced elsewhere, the mineral essence and unprecedented concentration of a Priorat wine is unmistakable.