Marco Abella Clos Abella Priorat 2016
Carignan | Spain
A devastating devil from the mountains of Catalonia: beautifully aged Priorat!!
If you try to please everyone, you please no one. And as Coco Chanel said, “In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.” This packed-with-character 2016 Carignan-Grenache blend from northeastern Spain is unapologetically itself, and therefore wooing all the red drinkers around the office. Napa Cab fans are impressed by its strength. Grenache and Pinot types are moved by its harmony. The Carignan (Cariñena in Spanish) and Zin and Petite Sirah people are smitten with its cozy intensity. 91 points from James Suckling – when it was reviewed in 2022 – undersells this, we think.
The nose sends up simmering black cherries and cayenne-seared steak with some bakery window sweetness. Then the palate slams down cinnamon-sugar toast on a cedar plank, with an abundance of blackberries and raspberries rolling around the edges.
Love the slim, handsome bottle with the textured, stippled label by artist Josep Guinovart. Love that the fruit was grown organically and biodynamically on winemaker David Marco’s family’s old, terraced vineyard on slate-heavy soils at 1,800 feet elevation. And we love the way mineral freshness, thick skins, and mountain acid meet 18 months in 30% new French oak to ensure this holds steady through 2040. But if you want to drink your whole stash by Thanksgiving, there is nothing wrong with that!
About the Producer
Marco Abella is a family estate in Priorat, a tiny, mountainous wine region in Catalonia, Spain – one of only two Qualified Denominations of Origin in the nation, and one of the most dramatic wine landscapes on earth. The family's roots here stretch back to the 15th century, documented in the very first census of Catalonia in 1497. When phylloxera devastated the region at the end of the 19th century, the Marcos were forced to go to Barcelona, but never let go of the land. David Marco's father Joaquín, a poet, kept the family vineyard alive through the 20th century, drawing inspiration from these steep, slate-laden hillsides. In 2001, David and his wife Olivia Bayés returned to Porrera to revive the winery, recovering historic plots on vertiginous slopes of ancient licorella slate – some of it 400 million years old – so shallow and infertile that vines must drive their roots deep into fractured rock to find moisture. Today Marco Abella farms organically across roughly 30 hectares of Garnacha and Carignan, crafting wines of real finesse from one of Catalonia's oldest winemaking cultures.
- Blend70% Cariñena, 30% Garnacha
- WinemakerDavid Marco
- CountrySpain
- RegionCatalonia
- AppellationPriorat
- VineyardMarco Abella estate vineyards
- Farming MethodOrganic & Biodynamic Practices
- Oak30% new French oak
- Aging/Cooperage18 months
- Alcohol14.5%
- Production625 cases