2016 Clos I Terrasses Priorat Laurel

Clos I Terrasses is in Priorat in northeastern Spain. Once a region of traditional winemaking, Priorat lost many vineyards in the 20th century to phylloxera. Then in the late 1980s Spanish and international winemakers revived the region’s wine industry. In 1988 Daphne Glorian became part of that new wave when she purchased terraced vineyards outside of the village of Gratallops in Priorat and started making wine. Although she had no viticultural experience, she was soon getting advice from some of the leading lights of the Spanish wine renaissance, including Rene Barbier and Alvaro Palacios. Glorian grows 75% Garnacha, 20% Syrah, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon and the estate is totally biodynamic. Clos Erasmus is the flagship wine, and Glorian named it after the 16th-century Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus, known for writing tracts in praise of folly. The reference is a humorous one to the leap of faith Glorian took in 1988 when she used all of her savings to buy the land that would become Clos I Terrasses. In recent years the Clos I Terrasses winemaker has been Ester Nin, a Spanish winemaking star. Besides Clos Erasmus, the estate makes a second wine called Laurel. Both are produced in small quantities and both have earned high compliments and scores in the mid to upper 90s from reviewers. Robert M. Parker Jr. calls Clos Erasmus “arguably the finest wine of Priorat.”

Priorat in southern Catalonia is one of Spain’s newer regions for quality wines. With only about 2,500 vineyard acres, it is not one of Spain’s larger appellations, and its rocky mountains and hillsides make for challenging vineyard management. But grapes have been grown here in the rich, volcanic soil since at least the Middle Ages, when Carthusian monks planted vineyards. Bulk wines were the main focus here until the late 1970s, when pioneering Spanish winemakers Alvaro Palacios and René Barbier replanted vineyards and vastly improved winemaking in the region. Clos Mogador, Clos Erasmus and Finca Dofi were some of the now much-admired wineries started in the later decades of the 20th century. By the 1990s many innovative, quality-focused wineries were started in Priorat, making it one of the hottest winemaking regions in Spain. Priorat was made a DO in 1954 but upgraded to the prestigious Demoninación de Origen Calificada, or DOCa, in 2000. (In Catalan, the regional language, the appellation abbreviation is DOQ.) Full-flavored, full-bodied wines with relatively high alcohol content are characteristic of Priorat, with Garnacha (Grenache) and Carinena (Carignan) being the traditional grapes.