An alluring red wine from M&S

If you want to trial this classic listing from Marks & Spencer, you had better move fast, says Matthew Jukes.

Matthew Jukes
By
published
in Features

734_frares

2013 Frares Priorat, Spain (£13, reduced to £11 until 6 April, Marks & Spencer, marksandspencer.com).

You are the first to read about this terrific and inexpensive red wine. It is set to be a classic listing at Marks & Spencer, so if you would like to trial it before you take the plunge and buy a few cases, you had better move fast.

First of all, and this is important to many, the bottle looks the part, even though it sports an everyday price tag. It comes from the historic, powerhouse region of Priorat, in the southwest of Catalonia, where mighty reds are made from steep-terraced vineyards planted on black slate and quartz soil known as llicorella.

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Winemaker Sandra Estevez works at the region's oldest cooperative winery and she uses minimal treatments and no oak in this 50% garnacha, 50% Cariena blend this is why it is already supple enough to drink now and the bush vines used are a minimum of 50 years old.

Tot it all up and you might reasonably expect a price tag of twice what it is. The fact that the flavour is heavenly and brooding, with mulberry, plum, liquorice and dark chocolate in abundance, only adds to its allure. I raise my glass of Frares to you (yes, I have already secured my stock).

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (matthewjukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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