Spanish Passion from Alvaro Palacios and the Rise of Sicily: Weekly Tasting Report (Aug 3-9)

The wines of Alvaro Palacios, one of the most passionate and legendary winemakers in Spain today, rose to the top of our ratings of 771 wines over the past week, with his premier bottles from the 2020 vintage in Priorat and Bierzo genuinely in a league of their own – so much so that they’ve shaken our understanding of the vintage.

Undeniably cult-like and expensive, Palacios’ Priorat L’Ermita is every bit as good as it has been hyped to be (and that means, sadly, that not many of us will be able to find it or afford it). The 2020 vintage once again proves its status as Spain’s deserving king of garnacha-based reds despite a challenging, mildew-affected vintage in the Priorat village of Gratallops. Total rainfall for the vintage reached 674 millimeters, most of which fell in the spring and early summer.

According to Isabel Palacios, the export director for the Alavaro Palacios winery, it wasn’t until mid-June that a proper Mediterranean summer finally got underway. And from veraison around mid-July to a very early harvest, the weather was marked by intense sunshine and heat, and the grapes of L’Ermita vineyard were picked on Sept. 25 and 29. She said the wine has “a texture of opulence,” which is a bit paradoxical considering the difficulties with rain and mildew.

Tasting L’Ermita 2020 was a truly unforgettable experience. Senior editor Zekun Shuai found that the wine showed an enchanting sensuality with depth and ultra-fine tannins. A floral and mineral elegance wows you, then gradually turns to spice and lard with a refined mossy etherealness that further unwinds on the palate into an endless finish.

But considering the tiny production volume of around 1,500 bottles, it will likely be a pricy buy, although worth the investment. (On Wine Searcher, it's already listed at around $1,200 in Germany.) This is where some of Palacios’ other vineyard wines, such as La Baixada 2020 and Les Aubaguetes 2020, come in. The former displays a unique, mineral purity for the vintage, and the latter comes closest to replicating L’Ermita, although at only a fraction of the price.

The Gratallops 2020, meanwhile, is probably the best introduction to Alvaro Palacios’ top wines from Priorat. It’s a racy blend of vineyards with nimble, red berry fruit and an almost pinot etherealness that is beguilingly sweet and sultry.

Some mencia-based reds from a project Alvaro Palacios runs with his nephew Ricardo Perez Palacios were equally as emotion-evoking. The pair started Descendietes de J. Palacios around 1998, bringing the wines of Bierzo, in Spain’s northwest, to a level on par with the finest Burgundies. Each wine, including La Faraona, Las Lamas, and Moncerbal, shows great individuality.

We found a reductive character in each. The flinty edge to La Faraona 2020, which comes from a steep, half-hectare vineyard at 850 meters elevation, was especially prominent. This wine evolves into a fascinatingly scented nose with a great width of perfume and ethereal linearity, making it a fragile, irresistible beauty. Las Lamas 2020, in comparison, is more reticent with deeper and slightly richer blue fruit, minerality, fine herbs and flowers. Both wines are pure and precise yet so unique.

READ MORE: TOP 100 WINES OF SPAIN 2021; TOP 100 WINES OF SPAIN 2020

And even though Spanish wines took top kudos this week, Italy dominated in numbers with about 640 wines rated out of the total. Many were from Sicily, where James and Associate Editors Claire Nesbitt and Nathan Slone were in the region of Noto to taste almost 400 wines, interview a couple dozen winemakers and visit a handful of wineries. 

James hadn’t been to Sicily since 2018, and he was impressed to see how many of the wines they tasted seem to finally reach a level of competitive quality with wines from some of the most coveted regions in the world. The Sicilian wines that showed the most improvement were from Etna, particularly the northern area and the wineries between the towns of Randazzo and Linguaglossa. The town of Passopisciaro, in the middle, has more top wineries within its boundaries than any other in the region around Europe’s most active volcano.

You can feel the difference in the Etna region just driving along the main road winding up the slopes of the volcano from the sea. More stores, restaurants and hotels now exist, and many more people are on the streets in the key towns. James even had lunch in a bistro that featured grilled aged-Sicilian steak with a fancy Michelin-starred restaurant next door. “Times have changed,” he said during the lunch of one-month aged steak and a bottle of Frank Cornelissen Terre Siciliane Munjebel 2020. The low-sulfur red was softly textured and deeply flavored, with a freshness and lightness on the palate despite its intensity. 

The top Etna wines of their tastings included the Frank Cornellissen red as well as the Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Rosso Calderara Solttana Prephylloxera La Vigna di Don Peppino 2020, Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Rosso Dagala di Bocca d’Orzo Monopole 2020 and Girolamo Russo Etna Rosso San Lorenzo Piano delle Colombe 2019. Most of the best reds of Etna, like the ones above, are made from ancient vines, some more than 100 years old, and grow on their own rootstock in small areas called “contrade” just like crus in Burgundy. 

READ MORE: ETNA ERUPTS IN THE GLASS AS SICILY’S COLORFUL WINE PLUME SPREADS

Etna reds, which are mostly made of nerello mascalese, have a special sensibility and drinkability that reminded the tasting team of top Barolo but with unique characters of flowers, herbs, cherries and pumice. Some people like to compare them to red Burgundy, but Etna reds are more tannic, with greater acidity. The big question is whether they have the nature and personality to really improve with age, particularly long-term aging. Not many of the older wines they tasted last week showed great improvement, but they are all so good when young. 

Etna whites range in styles from crisp and clean to wooded and extracted with great structure. James thinks they have the potential to age beautifully, and the few whites the team tried, with five to ten years in bottle, had done just that. The majority are made with carricante and can be produced with or without wood barrels. 

Etna is a fascinating wine region in the world and its wines are worth getting to know. It’s hard to believe that the region only really came into fine winemaking in a big way at the beginning of 2000. We are sure that more and more great wines from here are on their way. 

There was also one particular wine of note that Senior Editor Stuart Pigott tasted, the Royal Tokaji Tokaji Essencia 2009, which he called a "truly extraordinary dessert wine." After fermenting until 2017 it was given five years bottle aging before release, and is now only available in halves. "Wine really doesn’t get more concentrated than this!“ Stuart commented.

Check out all the scores from the report, below.

– Zekun Shuai, Senior Editor; James Suckling, Editor/Chairman

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.