Selección Especial Numerada 66 Priorat 2021

Selección Especial Numerada 66 Priorat 2021 is a dense and concentrated full-bodied red with spicy red and black fruit flavors accented by toasty oak. Delicious? Of course. But the real juicy part? It’s made by one of the most famous and most awarded estates in Priorat, Spain—we just can’t tell you who.

In the hills southwest of Barcelona, Priorat is one of just two Spanish wine regions to have earned the country’s elite Denominación de Origen Calificada classification, reserved for those that have reached consistent high levels of quality wine production over a long period of time (the other is Rioja). And yet, given its extreme terrain and unrelentingly hot, dry climate, few producers dare make wine here.

Priorat has less than 5,500 acres under vine—about a 30th of the vineyard acreage of Rioja—and plantings criss-cross haphazardly over layers of contrasting slate soils and dangerously steep slopes that “seem to defy the commercial realities of wine production,” says Decanter. The vines that do manage to survive are remarkably low yielding, which means the region’s production is inherently more about quality than quantity, and wine prices are correspondingly exorbitant.

Finca L’Ermita is considered widely to be the area’s crown jewel vineyard, thanks to legendary winemaker Álvaro Palacios, whose eponymous single-site bottling is thought to be the most important Spanish wine of the modern era, sold regularly for about $1,000–$1,500, depending on the vintage…and a small back road is all that separates the site from the winery that makes Selección Especial.

This producer’s wines don’t fetch quite as much as Álvaro’s, but they are almost as heralded, with swathes of 90+ point scores, a trophy cabinet stuffed with top awards and huge global demand for their finest red bottlings.

So how can we offer this wine for a mere fraction of the cost? Well, that’s thanks to our local expert, Sarah Everden, to whom the winery owed a favor. In exchange for keeping their name a secret, they let us sell the wine at a much friendlier price tag than usual.

A seductive, full-bodied blend of Garnacha, Samsó, Syrah and Merlot aged eight months in French and American oak, this wine delivers intense red berry flavors underscored by spicy, balsamic tones. There’s just enough tannic grip to keep things interesting and welcome acidity to make it a perfect partner for food.

Hurry for yours—extremely limited cases available.