I'd be hard pressed to tell you the last Spanish red wine I ordered in a restaurant or bought in a market. But that's about to change.
Last week I made the aquaintance of Los 800, a delicious red wine from the Priorat region of Spain. Supposedly Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator have proclaimed this area in northeastern Spain to be one of the world's up-and-coming wine growing regions, but I never got the memo. 
What I did get was a noseful of some of the loveliest fruit ever to find its way into a glass. Ripe fruit, especially blackberries, with a hint of violets and dried herbs thrown in for good measure. The wine is a blend of 50 percent grenache (called garnacha in Spain), carignan, cabernet sauvignon and syrah, which puts it in the same ballpark as France's Chateauneuf du Pape.
My first sip was another "Oh, wow" moment. Rich, elegant, lively fruit flavors balanced with what some folks call "rocks" (meaning, I presume, a certain balancing minerality). I was eating pork-and-veal meatballs with sauteed greens at Rendezvous at Central Square in Cambridge, Mass. (more on that in a future post) and the wine was a magic-making partner.
Priorat is an area of steeply terraced vineyards and picturesque medieval hamlets. Los 800 gets its name from the altitude of this family-owned vineyard, 800 meters or about 2600 feet. Up until fairly recently the region was known for rough and overly alcoholic wines. In other words, plonk. But new winemakers, new techniques and renewed commitment have resulted in top-notch wines that frequently reach cult status. A 2005 article by Eric Asimov in The New York Times detailed the region's comeback.
A survey of Priorat wines available on-line turns up plenty in the $60 to $80 range. Which means that Los 800, at about $16 a bottle, is but a delicious introduction to the glories of Priorat.
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