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Buy any 6 bottles and save 5%. Buy any 12 bottles and save 10% (excludes wines on offer). Free UK delivery on orders over £100. Tel: 02922 337454
Buy any 6 bottles and save 5%. Buy any 12 bottles and save 10% (excludes wines on offer). Free UK delivery on orders over £100. Tel: 02922 337454
2022 Les Aubaguetes, Álvaro Palacios

2022 Les Aubaguetes, Álvaro Palacios

Priorat, Spain

Slate Shadow

This is rare, serious Priorat with the power dialled into precision. Wild raspberry, black cherry and red plum lead the nose, followed by violet, orange peel, fennel, rosemary, crushed rock, liquorice and a fine smoky edge. It has the depth and concentration you expect from Álvaro Palacios, but Les Aubaguetes feels more shadowed and savoury than showy, with a cool mineral line cutting through the fruit.

On the palate, it is intense, elegant and tightly woven, with silky red fruit, fine tannins and a long, slate-driven finish. Garnacha brings perfume, warmth and red-fruited lift, while Cariñena adds grip, darkness and savoury tension. This is a collector-level Priorat for drinkers who want old-vine concentration, energy and finesse in the same glass; impressive now with air, but built for patient cellaring.

For when
A landmark dinner needs Priorat with quiet power.

Pairs with
Roast lamb, venison loin, aged beef, wild mushroom dishes, suckling pig, rosemary lentils, grilled aubergine, truffle risotto or hard aged cheeses.

Les Aubaguetes sits just below L’Ermita in rarity and ambition, showing Álvaro Palacios’ gift for turning Priorat’s extreme landscape into wines of fragrance, texture and mineral force. Grown on steep, slate-rich soils, it captures a slightly darker, more brooding side of the region: less about sheer weight, more about poise, savoury detail and the slow-building drama of old-vine Priorat.

Whats in the bottle
86% Garnacha, 13% Cariñena and 1% white grapes

Notable Awards
95-97 points - Luis Gutierrez, RobertParker.com

£399.95 - £399.95
£399.95
£399.95 - £399.95
£399.95
Availability:
6 in stock, ready to be shipped

Álvaro Palacios is one of the defining figures of modern Spanish wine. Born into the Palacios Remondo family in Rioja, he arrived in Priorat at the end of the 1980s and became one of the producers responsible for transforming the region from a remote, rugged landscape into one of Europe’s great fine-wine territories.

His work centres on old Garnacha and Cariñena vines grown on steep llicorella slate slopes around Gratallops and the surrounding villages. Rather than making Priorat purely about power, Palacios has helped shape a more refined vision of the region: wines with perfume, freshness, mineral tension and an unmistakable sense of place.

L’Ermita remains the icon, but wines such as Les Aubaguetes show the depth of the estate’s single-vineyard work. They are rare, expressive and deeply connected to their sites, offering the intensity of Priorat with an elegance that places Álvaro Palacios among Spain’s most important fine-wine producers.

The 2022 Les Aubaguetes is a Garnacha-led Priorat red, supported by Cariñena and a tiny proportion of local white varieties. The fruit comes from steep, slate-rich vineyard land, where low yields, poor soils and intense Mediterranean conditions produce small berries, deep concentration and a strong mineral character.

Fermentation is carried out with a sensitive, low-intervention approach, using indigenous yeasts and careful extraction to preserve perfume and texture rather than simply chasing power. Ageing is traditionally handled in larger oak vessels, allowing the wine to gain structure and harmony without masking the vineyard’s slate, herb and red-fruit character.

The 2022 vintage was warm and dry, giving concentration and ripe fruit, but Les Aubaguetes keeps impressive freshness and savoury definition. It is youthful and tightly wound now, so decanting is wise if opening early. With time, the tannins should soften and the wine will move towards deeper notes of dried herbs, spice, leather, wild berries and smoky mineral complexity.