Description
Munt Roca, Priorat “Selecció”
Upon tasting Munt Roca’s 2015 “Selecció,” you’d be forgiven for thinking it came with a price lofty enough to relegate it to “special occasion” status. It is, after all, from the Spanish DOQ of Priorat, where elite properties and century-old vines pepper one of the world’s most forbidding landscapes, squeezing out meager amounts of highly coveted juice. In the glass, impressive pedigree and terroir are authenticated by way of ripe black and blue fruits, smoky minerality, and a fantastically lush palate.
But if you hadn’t already guessed, the twist here is that today’s premium offer doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. In fact, at $38 per bottle, it’s among the best values you’ll come across in Priorat! “Selecció” is a direct injection of pure, glossy luxury—with age!—yet it’s affordable enough to pop any night of the week. If Super Tuscans, Napa Cabs, and Châteauneufs are in your wheelhouse (or perhaps they would be if pricing wasn’t prohibitive), then Munt Roca’s Priorat is a must-try. Stock up, and revel in the quality of blue-chip bottles without the blue-chip price tag!
Viticulture has been practiced in Priorat since at least the 12th century when Carthusian monks first brought vines to the region. But it was really in the 1990s that Priorat entered the spotlight, as wines like Clos Mogador made a splash with international critics and attracted a bevy of global investment in the region.
Priorat is, in a word, extreme. Located in the far northeastern corner of Spain, a short drive from Barcelona, the vineyards here compete with places like the Douro and Côte-Rôtie for the title of “most imposing landscape.” It seems to have every extreme: extreme heat, extreme altitude, extreme wind, which makes the vines struggle in the extremely nutrient-poor slate soils known as llicorella. All this combines to produce richly concentrated fruit and some of the most powerful wines in the world.
But if one thing separates great Priorat producers from the merely good, it’s their ability to capture freshness and refinement to match the region’s inherent power. Munt Roca is one such producer. “Selecció” is something like the wine equivalent of an NFL lineman: imposingly big but also shockingly nimble. The three varieties—60% Grenache and an even split between Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah—are fermented separately but come together to form a whole whose seamlessness is a marvel. And at almost seven years of age, “Selecció” is just beginning to really show what it can do.
Poured into a Bordeaux stem at 60 degrees, the power and precision of “Selecció” is a sight to behold. In the glass, it’s an opaque inky purple with hints of ruby, and the nose pours forth with intoxicating perfume. It exudes cherry liqueur, crushed raspberry, black cherry jam, candied plum, dried violets, tobacco, old leather, cedar, smoke, and a delicate undercurrent of saline minerality. The palate is a masterclass in balance, an unabashedly full body married to finely grained, mouth-coating tannins and a juicy wick of acidity. Luxurious and opulent but never heavy, the level of breed and class that’s on display here is simply shocking. It’s drinking absolutely perfectly now and I can’t wait to see where it goes over the next decade. Grab a six-pack and come along for the ride!
