Familia Torres’ Secret del Priorat 2019 has made the ‘The Enthusiast 100: The Best Wines of 2022’, published annually by the prestigious American magazine Wine Enthusiast. The reviewer team made their selection out of 21,000 blind-tasted wines from 17 countries, looking for compelling, delicious and broadly available wines with an outstanding quality-to-price ratio. The second vintage of this new Familia Torres wine from Priorat is placed at the 31st positon, with 92 points, making it the highest-ranked of the 4 Catalan wines, and the second of the 8 Spanish wines included on the list.
Secret del Priorat, the newest wine in the range of Priorat wines by Familia Torres, tries to convey the landscape and diversity of this extraordinary wine region. The wine is a coupage mostly made up of the native Garnacha and Cariñena varieties and comes from selected vineyards across the region that form a mosaic of typical vine plots on steep llicorella slate slopes. Secret del Priorat is aged in large French oak barrels for 12 months, making this wine a harmonious blend that respects tradition and local culture. Its name and label evoke the beauty and magic of Priorat, a place where nature unceasingly reveals its secrets through small details, such as the flowers on the old almond trees that grow alongside the vines.
The second vintage, 2019, was a rather dry year, although some rainfall during the growth season contributed to good vegetative growth in the vineyards. Temperatures were within normal range, with slightly higher-than-average lows, albeit the summer was not particularly hot. Wine Enthusiast reviewer Mike DeSimone highlighted in his tasting notes, the “dark garnet to the eye and the aromas of blackberry, raspberry and vanilla, the network of delicate tannins supporting flavors of pomegranate, raspberry, menthol and cocoa powder; and on the finish, notes of candied orange peel and violet”.
Another Famila Torres’ Priorat wine that also got top recognition lately is Perpetual 2017 (DOC Priorat), made from 80-100 year old Cariñena and Garnacha vines and featured with 96 points and qualified as ‘Outstanding’ in the Panel Tasting article ‘Spanish Indigenous Reds’ by Sarah Jane Evans MW in the renowned British wine magazine Decanter.
