Wine & Spirits - October 2021 - 93

Montsant & Priorat
PRIORAT WHITE
91 | Conreria d'Scala Dei $37
2020 Priorat Les Brugueres ^ Jordi Vidal
sustains this parcel of 110-year-old garnacha
blanca vines with organic farming. He
allows the fruit to macerate on its skins for
two days before fermentation begins with
ambient yeasts, then lets it rest on the fine
lees for six months. The concentrated flavor
of those grape skins makes this young wine
a little sweaty, but there's plenty of concentrated
fruit that takes over with flavors of
golden raspberries, strawberries just coming
into ripeness and sweet apples. This needs a
year or two in the cellar to integrate. § European
Cellars, Charlotte, NC
90 | Terroir al Limit
$115
2018 Priorat Pedra de Guix ^ Dominik
Huber builds this blend from pedro ximénez
(an old-vine parcel on clay soil), macabeo (on
alluvium) and garnacha blanca (on schist).
He does not protect the wine from oxygen,
giving the grapes gentle pressure in a basket
press, fermenting the juice in a concrete vat
and aging it in a Stockinger foudre. The wine
emerges golden and floral with cool flavors
of apricots and nectarines, along with a substantial
mineral presence, as if to emphasize
the garnacha on schist. Fresh in the end, this
would match grilled sardines or swordfish. §
European Cellars, Charlotte, NC
PRIORAT ROSÉ
88 | Buil & Giné
$18
2020 Priorat Giné Rosat (BEST BUY) ^ The
color of hibiscus tea, and an immediate redcherry-syrup
character right when the glass
is poured, this wine had one panel suggesting
a side of ice and soda. Then it settles in with
air, with fresh scents of marjoram and mineral
tannins lending a sanguine note. By the
second day, this rosé opens to red currants,
raspberries and sour cherries, suggesting a
decant would be sensible, especially if you
have a goat cheese salad with strawberries
and almonds at hand. § Think Global Wines,
Santa Barbara, CA
PRIORAT RED
95 | Buil & Giné
Giné family, long-time farmers in Gratallops
with 200 acres of vines, who made this blend
as their first wine in 1996. They ferment the
fruit from individual parcels as whole berries
in stainless steel without added yeasts, take
it through malolactic in barrels, then blend
and return it to stainless steel for aging. Their
2018 is black mineral juice: It tastes as if there
were a gash cut in the Priorat hills and blackcurrant
juice came welling out of the schist.
Give it a day of air and the wine's delicacy
begins to shine, layered in sunny fruit and
herbs, hard to resist. § Think Global Wines,
Santa Barbara, CA
94 | Casa Gran del Siurana $19
2019 Priorat GR-174 (BEST BUY) ^ Here's one
of the great buys in this issue: an explosive,
complex Catalan red with the best sort of
musky stink. At first, it smells a little bit
like chorizo, then it continues to generate
subtle schist and black-sour-cherry scents,
the kind of riveting aroma that makes the
wine compellingly drinkable. A floral aspect
comes up, light and graceful above the schist
tannins that etch a finish that's potent and
deliciously rich. Anna Gallisà and Joaquim
Bartolomé blend this wine from all of the
varieties grown at the estate's two properties-one
on sediments from the Siurana
River with syrah, cabernets sauvignon and
franc, and merlot; the other on llicorella
slopes focused on garnacha and carignan.
Berkshire chef Amy Loveless described the
flavors as " warm-in-the-sun blackberries,
mouthwatering with grilled lamb. " § Vinovia,
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA
94 | Ferrer Bobet
$52
2017 Priorat ^ Raül Bobet makes this wine in
partnership with Sergi Ferrer-Salat, of Monvinic
(in Barcelona). It's an ambitious project,
the estate including both ancient vines and
their own more recent plantings, along with
a gravity-flow winery built into the hills. This
blend, focused on carignan, includes cabernet
sauvignon, garnacha and syrah, all of it
planted from 2004 to 2006 in the slate soils of
this estate, located in the hills between Porrera
and Falset. The wine is lean and fresh
with blackcurrant and rosemary notes, capturing
with precision the character of a carefully
planned, organically farmed, contemporary
vineyard in Priorat. § Vintus, NY
$23
2018 Priorat Giné Giné (BEST BUY) ^ A wine
like Giné Giné benefits from blind tasting,
especially if the purpose of that tasting is to
find wines, regardless of price, that speak of
their origin. Everything about this wine is
pure Priorat: It's half garnacha and half carignan,
all of it grown in llicorella soils by the
94 | Buil & Giné
$32
2015 Priorat Joan Giné ^ A top selection from
the Giné family's vineyards in Gratallops,
this is mostly garnacha and carignan, with
15 percent provided by cabernet sauvignon
and merlot. It ferments in French oak barrels,
then ages in a mix of French and American
oak barrels for 12 months. The fruit is
robust enough that the oak aging refines the
tannins without providing overt flavors. In
fact, it's fresh and open enough to serve with
grilled swordfish and black-olive tapenade-
or, if you prefer, beef carpaccio rubbed with
thyme. The red forest-berry flavors and rawmeat
notes provide highlights and depths to
the structure of the wine, resonant and long. §
Think Global Wines, Santa Barbara, CA
94 | Buil & Giné
$65
2012 Priorat Pleret ^ While the varietal blend
of Pleret is similar to that of Joan Giné (also
recommended here), this wine ages in French
oak only, and longer in bottle, with a later
release. It's used that time to develop a schistand-blueberry
grandeur, the tannins still
powerful, though cushioned by the fruit,
the fragrance lasting with berries and herbal
richness. It feels more ambitious than the
Joan Giné, and no less beautiful for it. § Think
Global Wines, Santa Barbara, CA
93 | Ferrer Bobet
$64
2017 Priorat Vinyes Velles ^ Mostly carignan
(74 percent) in a blend with garnacha, this
wine features centenary vines from a collection
of growers, made by Raül Bobet in partnership
with Sergi Ferrer-Salat at their winery
in Porrera. At its core, it's a meaty young
tough, dripping with bright strawberry and
deep red-plum flavors that suggest what it
might become with five or ten years in the
bottle. The black tannins keep pulling the
fruit through the finish, the wine dynamic
and built to age. § Vintus, NY
93 | Domini de la Cartoixa $59
2018 Priorat Crossos ^ Scents of anise run
through this wine's ripe garnacha flavors,
the clean fruit playing against a cool mineral
dynamic, the wine's formidable length a harmonic
riff on schist and sun. This is a blend
of fruit from several growers, half garnacha,
15 percent carignan and 35 percent cabernet
sauvignon. § Wine Connections USA, Logan, UT
93 | Bodegas Mas Alta
$35
2017 Priorat Artigas ^ Michel and Christine
Vanhoutte assembled an 86.5-acre estate
after the Belgian couple moved to Vilella
Alta, a village in the hills of Priorat. They
enlisted Michel Tardieu and Philippe Cambie
to help build their cellar, and, more locally,
Bixente Oçafrain, to make the wines. Artigas
focuses on garnacha (70 percent), with cabernet
sauvignon and old-vine carignan, the
blend combining bitter red fruit notes and
sweet red berry flavors in a cool, floral balance.
§ European Cellars, Charlotte, NC
Oc TO b ER 2021
WINE & SPIR IT S
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Wine & Spirits - October 2021

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