For tonight’s Halloween entertainment, we chose 1965’s The Creeping Terror:

Just imagine, some assistant forgot to turn on the mic for 80% of the film.  Thus, dull narration lays over scenes like a wet blanket, telling us “and then Martin said he was worried and asked to open the door, which he did”, then jump cut to a shag carpet crawling for hours across a field. Terror.

Drinking is the only answer.

For something actually dark, interesting, and challenging, let us go to hilly Priorat in North East Spain.

Priorat’s highest village, Porrera sits isolated and chilly growing the region’s best wines.

The Marco family had wine roots going back to the fifteenth century but only recently sold everything they had to return and revitalize their land.  Today, they farm bio-dynamically, entirely from their estate, harvest and sort fruit by hand.

I happen to open a 2008 Marco Abella, Mas Mallola, Priorat, Spain. It blends Grenache (63%) and Carignan (20%), with Cabernet Sauvignon (11%) and Merlot (6%), followed by aging in French barrels.

Josep Guinovart was paid in wine to make the labels

The APPEARANCE has clear, medium plus ruby core, medium garnet rim, waxy legs.

AROMAS smell of medium plus iron rust, dried black figs, black cherry liquor, fresh tomato, dried anise.

The PALATE feels dry and dusty but with taut acidity, powdery tannins, medium plus alcohol, and a lush medium plus body.

FLAVORS show medium plus intensity iron, ash, black cherry skin, dried herbs, and tomatoes. Flavors last a medium plus length.

Marco Abella’s 2008 Mas Mallola is very good (4 of 5), quite well structured after eight years, earthen, dark-fruited, and complex.  Lean, charred meat, herbed lamb, aged hard cheeses, or horrible movies pair well with it.

While the Creeping Terror put my wife to sleep, the wine at least distracted me enough.