Priorat: slate and grenache · The Beverage Terroir Canon

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Origin

Priorat, Catalonia, Spain

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Description

Spain's most extreme red wine — grown on black slate and quartzite soils (llicorella) in the Priorat DOCa (one of only two DOCa designations in Spain, alongside Rioja) at 400-750 metres altitude in the Serra de Montsant mountains of inland Catalonia. The llicorella slate is the defining terroir element: vines driven deep into fractured rock by stress, yielding tiny crops of concentrated berries from Garnacha (Grenache) and Cariñena (Carignan) vines, some over 100 years old. The wines are powerful (14-16% ABV commonly), mineral, and complex — with a distinctive graphite-pencil mineral note from the slate that appears in no other Spanish wine. The best examples (Álvaro Palacios 'L'Ermita', Mas Doix, Clos de l'Obac) are among Spain's most internationally collected wines.

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The Thread

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Flavour Context

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Pillars V — VII

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