Familia Nin Ortiz, Nit de Nin Coma d’en Romeu

PRIORAT

The revival of Priorat by a fraternal band of committed and intrepid young winemakers in the late 1980s and early 1990s is one of the great romantic stories of modern Spanish wine. But this tiny Catalonian region – it has less than 2,000ha in total – has moved on from the somewhat caricatured wave of big and bruising Parker-pleasing wines that followed the original founders.

A new wave of producers has been making wines of much greater finesse and expression, without sacrificing their essential depth and Mediterranean warmth. Among the best of new Priorat is the husband-and-wife team of

Carles Ortiz and Ester Nin, a grower and winemaker who met in 2007 and combined their talents and vineyards to create Familia Nin Ortiz. The vineyard holdings conform to a classic idea of Priorat: vertiginously steep terraces, with restored old vines of Garnacha and Carignan on the region’s famous llicorella slate soils.

The methods are very 21st century: biodynamic in the vineyard, and then verging on natural in the cellar, with a range of different winemaking vessels from concrete to amphorae to, in the case of their stellar single-vineyard 100% Grenache, neutral 600-litre oak foudres. Familia Nin Ortiz, Nit de Nin, Coma d’en Romeu, Priorat, Catalonia 2017 93 £ 102 (2016) Hedonism, Honest Grapes

Brilliantly natural Priorat that doesn’t stint on the savoury-meaty intensity and complex, brooding dark-fruit and olive-tapenade flavours. It has inner life and energy, too, with a refreshing mineral undertow. Organic. Drink 2020-2030 Alc 14.5%