2015 Perinet Priorat DOQ 750 ml

A Napa Master Takes on Spain...And Wins

The last place we expected to find a lavish, dense, voluptuous Priorat was in a downtown Napa tasting room. But that’s precisely where we stumbled across this spellbinding Spanish heavy-hitter, fragrant with blackberry, graphite, and violets. Propped against the antique mahogany bar in Alpha Omega’s new tasting room on First Street, we were chatting with three-time 100-point winemaker Jean Hoefliger when he surprised us with a bottle he’d been working on 5,000 miles away.

Hard-to-find and offered today at a 15% discount off of SRP, this exquisite expression of Priorat’s minerality and ripe concentration will reward lovers of lush Napa reds. Its combination of decadent aromatics, firm tannins, and polished, silken mouthfeel led critic Jeb Dunnuck to give the 2015 a 95-point score, and call the wine a “terrific Priorat.”

Hoefliger is a co-founder of the renowned Rutherford estate Alpha Omega and one of the world’s most sought-after consulting winemakers. He oversees winemaking at Perinet, Alpha Omega’s sister winery in Spain. “If you don’t know who Jean Hoefliger is, now is a good time to find out!” declared Jeb Dunnuck in a rave overview of releases from the Swiss-born winemaker. 

As Hoefliger talked and poured—filling our glass with the magenta-hued 2015, sending up a bouquet of crushed rock, florals, and plums—we found ourselves transported to the dramatic, breathtaking slopes of Perinet. 

“You walk the vineyard and it’s just pure slate that breaks under your feet like snow,” Hoefliger told us. “It’s so steep that it’s impossible to mechanize anything. Everything is done by hand. Whereas in Napa you’re getting 2 to 2.5 tons per acre, there you’re looking at half a ton per acre. The plant struggles so much to find moisture and ripen in these conditions that it truly extracts whatever the soil gives, yielding that minerality and density. You get a wine that’s absolutely, completely specific to the region.”

Perinet’s three vineyards encompass a range of microclimates and soils, from the rocky, high-altitude, sun-splashed hills of Mas Vell to Pendents, a cooler site profoundly influenced by the sea air. The resulting blend, says Hoefliger, combines “the ripeness of Napa with the acidity and freshness of the Rhône Valley.”

Big, bold, luscious Syrah fills out the powerful structure provided by Carignan, while Grenache gives this wine its lift and gorgeous floral aromatics. Purity and elegance are attained through slow fermentation with one or two punch-downs by hand a day, and the spice and finely integrated tannins come from 15 months in French oak.

A tremendously rich and site-specific Spanish red from a 100-point winemaker, this is Priorat built for pleasure in the short and long term.