This bold and sinewy red is packed with flavor. Notes of steeped black cherry and currant are teamed up with graphite, wild herb and espresso underpinnings. A vibrant acidity accentuates the tea, spice and orange peel elements, marking the long finish. Should age nicely.

The ’great walls’ in the wine’s name protected the nearby Poblet monastery, which was the burial place of the Catalan kings. The magisterial blend highlights the family work on ancestral varieties, with Querol and Garró adding to the superbly intense and spicy palate. Liquorice, garrigue, succulent berry fruits, developing notes of leather with time, an elegant vintage.

Perhaps it's the 33 percent Querol component, but from the very first moment you approach this brooding, black-purple wine, something marks it out as exceptional and different from its regional peers. There's drama in the aromas; the sweet black fruits also seem to smell of crushed stone and seed spice. Once in the mouth, the wine is close-knit, vital with inner gathered force. The fruits are more complex than the aromas had suggested once on the palate; they are gently acid-sustained, and those crushed-stone flavours are present on the tongue, too...

Taking its names from the walls surrounding Poblet Monastery in Conca de Barberà, this wine demonstrates the work done by Torres to resurrect native Spanish grape varieties. Along with Garnacha (42%), Cariñena (40%) and Monastrell (5%), the blend includes the less familiar Querol and Garró; parcels are picked, vinified and aged separately, before final blending. With a distinctively Catalan character, this vintage is already quite complete, showing lovely integration of tannins and oak. Vanilla-edged black fruit aromas: black cherries, summer pudding character, warm brown spices...