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If you are deep into the wine scene, you have undoubtedly heard of Priorat – a tiny Spanish wine region that has asserted itself on the international scene in a big way in recent years. For those only casually into wine, “Rioja”, and “Tempranillo” are probably the only two wine-related words that spring to mind in association with Spain. If you fall into that latter group, we encourage you today to change that. For us, Priorat (and the surrounding environs such as Montsant), alongside an even lesser know Jumilla (small region near Valencia), craft Spain’s most notable wines today. These wines sing with life. It’s as if they pull some of the soul right out of that old Spanish soil and deliver it into your glass.
Priorat has a long, long wine history, dating back to the 1100s and the wine-making monks of Scala Dei. By the 1800s, nearly 40,000 acres of this small region were planted with wine grapes. By 1980, a mere 2,000 acres remained. Having been wiped out by phylloxera several decades earlier (as so many wine regions of the world were around that time), the already small population of Priorat dwindled even further as residents fled to the more promising and job-abundant cities of Spain. Somewhere in the 1980s, though, a small group of wine visionaries (now referred to as the “pioneers”) recognised the region’s potential and established a small cooperative. Their first wine hit the market in 1991, and globally famed wine critic Robert Parker awarded it 100 points. From there, the rest, as they say, is history.
Today, Priorat straddles history and modernity. All of the region’s vines are still tended are harvested by hand on high terraces in the ragged old hills. The surrounding towns/castles are all still tiny and good luck finding a restaurant or a shop of any sort open at any hour on a Monday or Tuesday. On the other hand, some of the cellar doors/wineries there now rank among the most fabulous and flashy in the world. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into Priorat by international wine concerns looking to grab a stake in the now prestigious region while they can.
One of the strangest and best features of Priorat is that even though some of the wineries there have spent many tens of millions of dollars to establish stunning homes, they are not open to the public at large. You must make a booking, and sometimes you need to go through a local conduit (we highly recommend TravelPriorat (ask for Ania)) to even get in. While to those accustomed to the modern wine world, it feels eerie and strange to wonder through these incredible wineries more or less alone, it is also incredibly cool. The level of attention you get is complete. It’s just a different realm of an experience from a typical modern wine tasting.
When you go to Priorat, following are the places (of the ones we visited) that you can’t leave without seeing.
* Merum Priorati – One of the most spectacular wineries we have ever seen. The mystical nature of Merum Priorati’s name carries right over into the sleek design of what might be described as a cross between a castle and some guild of the night’s secret ceremonial hall of a winery. The place in all its mystery and beauty will send chills down your spine. And so will their jaw-droppingly sublime wines. All power and poise; the definition of elegance. Truly stunning wines.
* Perinet– Another spectacular affair. You won’t believe the scale and grandeur of this place (one of the larger producers in the region, they still only utilise 25% of their capacity!) As with all of Priorat, the staff are exceptional (our hats off to Sarah!) and they really treat you to a special experience here. For example, tasting the single varietal Grenache and Carignan straight from the barrels in which they are fermenting will help you to understand the individual components of Priorat’s world famous blend. Great experience!
* Mas Doix is one of Priorat’s most famed houses, and when you run through their wines, you’ll see why! On the palate, their Doix 2015 is a warm fire on the autumn hearth! Mas Doix’s new winery and cellar door is almost complete, and while we enjoyed the tour of the work in progress, we couldn’t help feeling doing the tasting in their original home/winery in the village where it all started was a touch of magic. Blanca, who heads up hospitality amongst other things, is superb. You can’t visit Priorat and not stop here.
* Bodegas Mas Alta was one of our favourite stops on the entire trip. The facility is beautiful, the tour is great, but what really set it apart for us was the incredible character of our tour guide (Roxena could light up any experience), the breadth of the tasting (unique to this stop in our visit, true interest was rewarded with a deviation off the standard tasting list and into some of Mas Alta’s most interesting wines), and the astounding quality of the wines. If we had to pick two stops on the wines alone, Mas Alta is one of them.
* Vinicola Priorat is a cool little winery and also an awesome wine store right in Gratallops town. Definitely worth a visit to taste some of their wines as well as some from around the region. We found their hyper polished Onix Classic 2017 to be one of the best values of the trip!
Finally, for something a little (or maybe a lot) different, we heartily recommend you pop by Cellers Costers del Ros in Gratallops. In every sense, it is a world away from the large wineries recommended above. Doing a tasting in the catacombs under the old but still passionate matriarch’s home by candle light is nothing short of amazing. The range of wines is quite small, but they are tasty and attractively priced. The proprietress doesn’t speak English, but even if you don’t speak Spanish, her passion shines through and speaks clearly enough for itself. Really a cute and magical stop.
The magical little world of Priorat is #WhyWeLoveWine. If you’ve never fallen in love with the romance of wine, you will here.
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4 thoughts on “Priorat – Worth All the Rage!”
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