Alvaro Palacios Les Aubaguetes

2023 Vintage Tasted: Aug 2025

This is a scented and elegant wine showing delicate red berry fruit with touches of white pepper, minerals and grapefruit. Firm, medium-bodied and chalky, with a fine thread of tannins. Linear and enveloping in the finish, with rose hips and citrus. A challengingly dry and hot year, but this maintains its nuances. This is a Priorat for pinot lovers who seek finesse. Drink now or hold.

2022 Vintage Tasted: Oct 2024

I love the tangy, peppery touch that’s is all about precision and purity, with aromas of red berries, white pepper, agave and minerals. It is a bit firmer on the palate, marked by chalky tannins, with elegant, airy red fruit and a taut, well-structured, minerally finish that lingers with elegance and persistence. Drink from 2025.

2022 Vintage Tasted: Feb 2024

Style: elegant, needs time, fruity, mineral. Color: Cherry. Aroma: complex, expressive, spicy, mineral, balsamic herbs. Flavour: full-bodied, long, great length, taut. Style: defined aromas, taut. Color: cherry, purple rim. Aroma: red berry notes, floral, spicy, wild herbs, balsamic herbs. Flavour: flavourful, fruity, good acidity, coarse tannins.

2021 Vintage Tasted: Sep 2023

Scented and floral nose but really precise with a slatey, mineral verve looming in along with the blueberry, wild raspberry and cranberry fruit. Certainly more red berry fruit here than Dofi or La Baixada. Subtle Mediterranean herbs and moss, too. Ripe yet still very layered, precise and ethereal. Succulent on the medium-bodied palate with fine, mealy tannins treading into a very long, mineral finish with nimble red berries. Drink or hold.

PRO Jancis Robinson

2021 Vintage Tasted: Jul 2023

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About Jancis Robinson

2020 Vintage Tasted: Aug 2022

Give this time in the glass and it will shine, offering crushed violets, blueberries and slate. The excitement builds up on the nose, with the breadth of the complexity and the depth of blue fruit. Mineral and full-bodied, but effortlessly rendered with immaculate tannins and freshness that linger to a persistent finish that’s full of flowers and blueberries. Really fine and endless. Already delicious, but will drink beautifully over the next two decades. Decant to enjoy now.

2020 Vintage Tasted: Jul 2022

Colour: deep cherry;Aroma: dried herbs, ripe fruit, black fruit, earthy notes, expressive, characterful;Flavour: ripe fruit, spicy, round tannins, good structure, flavourful;

2019 Vintage Tasted: Aug 2021

A very fresh and floral red with blackberries, minerals and crushed cloves with some slate and white pepper. Medium body, fine tannins and a bright, energetic finish. Complex and refined. Drink in 2023, but already beautiful.

2019 Vintage Tasted: May 2021

Colour: bright cherry;Aroma: balsamic herbs, sweet spices, scrubland, ripe fruit, red berry notes, fruit expression;Flavour: spicy, balsamic, good acidity;

2018 Vintage Tasted: Oct 2020

Such pure aromas of blueberries and cherries with lavender and white pepper. It’s medium-bodied with persistent, ultra fine tannins. So much finesse and focus. The finish goes on for minutes. Drinkable now, but give it a year or two to open.

96 / 100 Guia Penin

2018 Vintage Tasted: Jul 2020

Colour: very deep cherry;Aroma: complex, expressive, spicy, mineral, red berry notes, balsamic herbs;Flavour: elegant, full-bodied, long, great length;

2017 Vintage Tasted: Jul 2019

Colour: light cherry, garnet rim;Aroma: elegant, spicy, fruit expression;Flavour: balanced, complex, long, fine tannins, fine bitter notes, fresh, good acidity;

2017 Vintage Tasted: Jul 2019

Very smoky, showing crushed slate and hot stones. Very ripe fruit with blueberry and blackberry character. Full body. Very deep and profound with a solid cylinder of tannins that go deep and draw you down to the core of the wine. Lots of blueberries at the finish. A solid and super structured red that needs years to show its true greatness. Consistently great. Try after 2022.

2016 Vintage Tasted: Jun 2018

I love the floral, black-cherry and white-pepper notes on the nose of this very concentrated single-vineyard Priorat that has great, fine-grained, dry tannins and easily enough freshness to carry this enormous structure. Very long, vibrant mineral finish. Drink or hold.

95 / 100 Guia Penin

2016 Vintage Tasted: Jun 2018

Colour: bright cherry. Nose: fruit expression, elegant, mineral, complex, ripe fruit, raspberry. Palate: powerful, balanced, long, good structure, full.

2015 Vintage Tasted: Jun 2017

The intensity of this wine is phenomenal. It's not about concentration but depth and mouthfeel with ultra-fine tannins. So much rust and iron. White pepper. This is from only 1.4 hectares of ancient vines planted in 1901. Drink now or hold.