2016 Les Manyes

The 2016 Les Manyes is aromatic with tantalizing aromas of wild berries and herbs, flowers, a touch of forest floor and something salty. This has a lighter color and comes from a healthier vineyard that gives slightly higher yields (it was not in good shape); the vineyard is in a high-altitude place where they escape the heat of the Priorat. Of course the soils are completely different—they are limestone instead of slate and have more in common with Montsant than the majority of Priorat. The nose could be a mixture of a great vintage of Château Rayas and a traditional Nebbiolo from Piemonte. It's beautifully textured, with refined, chalky tannins and a medium to full-bodied palate, with no room for sweetness but with the volume of ripe Garnacha, pungent flavors and a very long finish. I just couldn't get myself to spit the wine! This is as far removed from a sweet wine as possible: This is a salty wine, a wine for food, a wine for gastronomy. The nose kept changing in the glass, developing new nuances with time—aromatic, intoxicating and attractive, with a kind of magnetism that made me go back to the glass over and over again. I could smell this for hours... I don't think Priorat gets much better than this! Bravo! 2,868 bottles were filled in July 2018.