Fortnum’s Priorat, Alvaro Palacios, 75cl

Alvaro Palacios, one of Spain’s greatest winemakers, has been making Priorat for us since 2014. In the 1980s, Palacios was one of the young guns who put this Catalonian hill so firmly on the wine map that it is now the only region other than Rioja to bear the country’s top quality designation. This blend dominated by Garnacha and Samsó, from 25-year-old vines on steep terraces, is powerful and seductive, with intense notes of plum and cherry, cocoa and dried herbs. It would go beautifully with a rack of lamb.