Priorat

Priorat is old-vine Carignan — here called Samsó — grown on shattered black llicorella slate in a hot, mountain-ringed Catalan amphitheatre, and it is one of Spain's most powerful and mineral red wines. Ancient, low-yielding bush vines and the heat-holding, water-starved slate concentrate the fruit into a dense, dark, high-acid red of firm structure, brambly black fruit, liquorice and a wet-stone, tarry minerality that growers trace straight to the rock.