Full of wood and soot on the nose, a little violet, blackcurrant and dark cherry, some coffee and vanilla. Maybe just a touch of spearmint. More of that really nice wood in the mouth, it’s supporting and high toned, not smothering. Lighter than the nose suggests. Plenty of dark cherry and  blueberry fruit, spice, dusty tannins and a sparkle of acid on the finish. Lovely, and dare I say it, elegant. Lovely stuff, highly drinkable now, but it will hold over the next 5 years. 92 Pts.

Source: Toro Wines Price: Around $55 Closure: Conventional Cork

I’ve got a couple of entry level on the tasting bench at the moment, this is the first. This was a big hit for me last year, a wine from Priorat at this price level and quality was quite rare at the time. But now wines in the $40-$60 price bracket are the must have item for many importers. And who’s complaining, seeing as the top wines from the region are going up again this year? There doesn’t seem to be one style at the price point, some are big rounded, easy drinking things, others are a bit tighter and focused. This falls into the later camp…

Plenty of Priorat character here, sooty, black coal kind of notes up on the nose first off, then a bit of hot tar and violets. After that the fruit: raspberry, plum and light cherry notes. The tannins are a little gritty and grainy, but it’s all nicely balanced and there is acid, enough to keep the finish sparkling clean, tangy and long. A similar profile on the palate, a bit of licorice and wood spice adds a bit extra. Overall, an excellent example of Priorat that doesn’t wander off in to rustic red wine, it looks like fine wine from Priorat.91 Pts

Source: Ce Soir Imports Price: $39 Closure: Conventional Cork

Other Vintages: 2004

It starts off smokey and sooty, then adds some herbs tangled up with some raspberry and plum fruit. In the mouth it has a backbone of acid with some supple tannins, but overall it comes over elegant and rounded. Its quite joyful and easy to drink. Crunchy minerals dominate the palate, with plenty of sunny raspberry and cherry, earthy and spice. Really nice stuff. 91 Pts.

Source: Negociants Australia RRP: $47 Closure: Conventional Cork

Web: www.torres.es

What a great little wine, plenty of complexity with a good overview of the landscape in Priorat: herbs, minerals, rocks and sun shine. The nose shows lavender, violets, and a little spearmint  after a while too.  On the palate its got a sarsaparilla, plum and cherry thing happening, moving on to blueberry as the wine opens up. Some minerals, pepper and hot cinnamon on the finish. A really convincing and complete example of Priorat to drink now and over the next 3 or 4 years. 91 Pts.

Source: Negociants Australia RRP: $65 Closure: Conventional Cork

This has reinforced my position that wines from Priorat are better drunk within 5 years of release. It’s a cracking wine right now, minerally and bursting with flavours that make it well worth the price of admission. It’s not the they don’t age, it’s just that they don’t look as good old as they do young (kind of like the rest of us). Of course there are exceptions to every rule…

Like most of Spain, 2006 is the last in a hat trick (3) of very good to great vintages. 07 and 08 were quite mixed, a bit wet at times and otherwise very strange weather. So lap up these 06s while you can.

Very similar in stature and style to the 05, the nose shows that classic sooty, hot rock note along with raspberry and blackberry fruit, a bit of wild sage and lavendar and raspberry leaf. Dark Chocolate and woody spices are in there too. Very agreeable and approachable, lip smaking acidity and light fluffy tannins. A shovel load of rocky mineralsn the big finish. A very good intro to serious Priorat. Perfect with a big steak from the Botanical and grilled over a wood fire. 92 Pts.

Source: The Spanish Acquisition Cost: Around $80 Closure: Conventional Cork

Other vintages: 2004, 2005

Earthy raspberry fruit on the nose with what I’m calling a Dr. Pepper/cola note, so that would be spearmint, wild sage, hot cinnamon and loads of pepper. Long with sandy tannins on the finish, the acid drives things along. A very spicy palate with plenty of pepper, light wood notes, more mint with raspberry and cola. This all leads to a kind of medicinal character, that I think matches the fruit, but a couple of people that I drank this with found it a bit too much. I like it, a solid wine from a hot vintage. 90 Pts.

Source: Bibendum Wine Co. Price: $57  Closure: Conventional Cork

A bit of coco, cherry and sappy plums with a bit of pez and sawdust. A bit more air show raspberry, slight violets, white pepper and sooty earth. Yeah its complex and enjoyable on the nose. Unfortunately, its a bit flat and clinical on the palate. The tannins are a bit hard on the finish, but overall it has good balance. A bit medicinal tasting with some clove and pepper, plum and rosella, cola. There’s plenty there to like and its quite a good wine for the vintage, but it just doesn’t come together for the big points. 89 Pts.

Source: Broadway Liquor Distributors Price: $90 Closure: Conventional Cork

Web: www.masdengil.com

I’ve been a big fan of Priorat in the past, but the price rises over the past couple of vintages have pushed these wines into a whole new price bracket. Plus they can be challenging, confronting wines that are more for the head than the heart. That doesn’t sound like fun, does it? Well, maybe in a fetish kind of way. Actually, the cheaper wines can be much more enjoyable than ultra expensive ones. At times I think you get much better value over the other side of the Iberian Peninsula in the Douro Valley.

Of course, as soon as I take such a bold position this wine turns up on the tasting bench. It’s $150 a bottle, which is by no means cheap, but it’s a spanking, complex wine that is worth the money if you like you’re into wine from Priorat. This is clearly up there with the top wines of the very good 2001 vintage and is drinking really well right now.

A classic Priorat nose of soot, hot rocks, raspberry, cherry pie, plum and bramble. Its a pleasure in the mouth, its well integrated and shows superior balance. Subtle tannins towards the finish and none of the heat that you can find in some Priorats, but it does weigh in at 15%. The palate shows plenty of minerals with some clove, raspberry and plum, cola, hot cinnamon and musk sticks. There’s enough here to restore my faith, its a little wild but that’s the point. 94 Pts.

Source: Broadway Liquor Distributors Price: $150 Closure: Conventional Cork

Web: www.masdengil.com

I've had a couple of requests to open a bottle of this wine, so I ducked into Boccaccio Cellars on Sunday and picked up a bottle. I went home decanted for an hour or so while I cooked up a couple of good steaks. It looked a bit odd to start with and really not pleasant to drink, so I had a glass and put the rest away for the next night. So you get two notes for the price of one here, one on the first night and on on the second. There may be a third note after tonight. This is a very intriguing wine, but not much fun at this stage of its life and something for the wine obsessed rather than hedonistic drinking. I'd love to try another bottle each year for the next 10 years to see where it goes, but given the price rise (about double the price of the 2001, an extra $50 on the 04) I'll only be buying a few.

Night 1: A very odd nose with vanilla pancake mix, barnyard, soot, aniseed powder, raspberry with some sawdust. With more air some notes of roast meats, sage and cheese. Lets just say it's extremely complex and confused at this stage. Not particularly nice in the mouth, angular with big, blocky tannins and confronting acidity. On the palate it shows sarsaparilla, dark fruits with mocha, plenty of cinnamon and clove. Very complex, for many this would be overly complex. A wine for the S&M fetishist, there is some great pleasure to be had here, but you have to be willing to put up with the pain too. Perhaps cellaring will sort it out, however there are some extreme balance issues. 91+ Pts.

Night 2: Looking better, but still a odd on the nose: varnish and coconut with barnyard, but the fruit has arrived with beautiful raspberry and cherry with some woody mocha and pipe tobacco notes. The usual soot and minerals is in there as well. The mouth feel has come up and shows excellent balance with soft fruit tannins and a shot of acid down the centre. Very powerful on the palate with rocks and minerals with cherry, plum and raspberry, and mocha. Not as spicy as last night, which is good. A very intense, complex and intellectual wine, with plenty of time in the cellar needed to show its best. Leave for 5 years before attemping. 94+ Pts.

Source: Boccaccio Cellars RRP: $190 Closure: Conventional Cork

Other Vintages: 1996, 2003, 2004

You may have seen a story about this wine in Epicure if you're in Melbourne, perhaps on theage.com if not. If not here's a quick summary: Don Lewis of Mitchelton fame and his partner, Narelle King, scored a gig making wine for Merum Priorati and in 2004 could get their hands on some fruit to make this wine. And its a beauty, and one of the most cost effective ways to introduce yourself to Priorat from the very good 2004 vintage. I've gone with with my raw tasting note here, it just seems to work for this wine.

Nose: Soot, blackberry,raspberry, roasted meats. Light nose, but well flavoured palate. Juicy fruit on the palate: blackberry, raspberry, rosella, mint, liquorice jelly beans, cocoa, fine dusty tannins good length and acid.  Pepper. Smooth mellow and refined, chilled out rather than tough and manic. Medium bodied.  Needs at least a couple of hours in a decanter to show its best. A great value intro Priorat. 91 Pts

Source: Rathdowne Cellars Price: $44 Closure: Conventional Cork

 The second of my Priorat auction purchases went much better. One of the problems with buying wine at auction is you never really know whats happened to it before it got to the auction house.  I've had good luck so far and have usually picked up very well stored bottles.  While there is still a very small amount of Spanish wine sold at auction, it is growing and the prices seem to be quite good.

The nose is almost non-existent on pouring, a lot of vigorous swirling bought it up a bit, however I think it needed more time in the decanter. A touch of rose, raspberry leaf, ripe red and black fruits with some hot rocks. In the mouth its a glorious drink, plenty of soft, refined tannins, well structured and balanced with an acid backbone. notes of dark cherry, raspberry and plum with black pepper, sage and loads of minerals. A long finish with more of those lovely minerals. Right in its drinking window now, but will last another 5 years in the cellar with no problems.  

Source: Auction Price Range: $55-$70 Closure: Conventional Cork

I picked up this wine and a bottle of 2000 Finca Dofi from auction to see how they were looking and to test the theory that these wines from Priorat can age well and develop additional complexity. While there is quite a bit of old vine material in the region, modern methods have only been used in the last 20 years, so its a fairly young region that's in a constant state of innovation. Plus its not an easy working environment: the hills are all shisty rocks on steep slopes and it can be bloody hot here so keeping everything from the picked grapes to the bottles in the cellar cool is very important. I have noticed that from around 2000 onward there has been a big jump in quality from many producers, so I was interested to see what this bottle looked like.

Opened up quite mousey and earthy, a touch of old raspberry leaf with subtle red and black fruits. None of the classic soot character. Disappointing, there were a few questions about TCA on the nose, but I don't think so. A touch of brett perhaps. The palate is much better showing some trademark minerals and rocks, raspberry, dark cherry and plums. A touch of old leather and barnyard but really quite simple.  Quiet pleasant to drink but nothing special. I went back to it a couple of hours later and it was looking much better, it had lost that mousy character and was not showing some mountain herbs, richer fruit and more complexity.  So if you've got some in the cellar, a couple of hours decant at minimum. 

Source: Auction Price Range: $55-75 Closure: Conventional Cork

There has been a bit of discussion on some of the wine forum about the cellaring potential of the wines from Priorat lately.  The main question is do they gain complexity? or does the fruit just fade and they are better drunk young?.  They seem to have everything in place for a long life, but the area is fairly young and really the answer is that no one knows yet.  I haven't had the chance to taste that many older vintages, but I've got a couple lined up for some of Melbourne's leading booze artists in a couple of weeks. Well, see how they go.

Sooty, earthy and rocky are the first things I notice on the nose, this moves on to blackberry and spice with some raspberry and chocolate.  This isn't your supercharged, balls-to-the-wall blockbuster, its very subtle and suave.  Tightly wound at the moment with a spine of acid and sandy tannins that keep it humming along. More dark and red fruit on the palate with a touch of pepper and herbs, clove and liquorice. It looks like 2005 will be good in Priorat, as expected.  Better than 2004?  Who knows, but two good vintages are better than one.  92+ Pts.

Source: The Spanish Acquisition Cost: Around $60 Closure: Conventional Cork

Other vintages: 2004 

I wasn't going to write this wine up initially, as its quite a rare wine this. The importer sold out in a matter of days (and at a insignificant price hike from 2003) and it seems that only a case or two made it out to other retailers.  This wine has a huge following in Australia, but the huge wrap the Wine Advocate gave it seems to have added to the buying madness. The wine comes in a very cool wooden box that has a very simple system to hold the bottles in place, rather than the normal plywood things that hold the bottle in place.

The nose starts of quite rustic and smokey/sooty and then opens up with mocha, violets and sage. It builds with more air to add blackberry, dark cherry and plums with aniseed.  But its in the mouth where this wine really shines at the moment.  Its the balance and complex fruit characters that put a smile on your face.  Medium bodied, but powerfully concentrated flavours that are well structured.  Oh and the tannins too.  Dark currents and plums with loads of minerals and old gold chocolate on the palate.  This is so young at the moment, it drinks like it could go 20 years no problems.  But drink your 02 and 03 over the next 5 years while you wait for this to come around.  97 Pts.

Source: Boccaccio Cellars RRP: ??? Closure: Conventional Cork