Wine region
Priorat
Priorat in Catalonia: steep terraces on slate, old Garnacha and Cariñena vines, and dense, concentrated reds with real character.
- Vineyard area
- just over 2,000 hectares in an area of about 17,600 hectares; twelve wine-growing villages and zones
- Main grapes
- Garnatxa (Grenache, Garnacha) and Carinyena (Cariñena, Carignan); with Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot
- Soil and terrain
- llicorella (dark slate); 100 to 750 metres, slopes up to 60 per cent
- Status
- Denominació d’Origen Qualificada (DOQ), Spain’s second after Rioja
- Origin tiers
- DOQ Priorat, Vi de Vila, Vi de Paratge, Vinya Classificada, Gran Vinya Classificada
- Landmark
- the Scala Dei charterhouse, founded in 1194
Priorat is a small mountain region in Catalonia, in the province of Tarragona, at the foot of the Serra de Montsant. Of the area’s roughly 17,600 hectares, only a little over 2,000 are planted with vines. They grow between 100 and 750 metres, on slopes that are mostly steeper than 15 per cent and in places up to 60 per cent. Where it is too steep the growers have built terraces, some so narrow that they hold only two rows of vines and no machine can pass. Anyone who knows the terraces of Valais or Lavaux will recognise the principle.
The soil is called llicorella: a dark Palaeozoic slate that breaks into thin plates and forms hardly any earth. Roots must plunge deep into the cracks, and each vine gives on average less than a kilo of grapes. A sunny, dry climate and large swings in temperature add to this. The harvest runs from mid-September on the lower sites to the end of October or early November on the highest.
Two grapes define Priorat: Garnatxa, known as Grenache or Garnacha, and Carinyena, Cariñena in Spanish and Carignan in French. Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot and others are also permitted, but the two old varieties are regarded as the area’s heritage. The wines are dense, dark and concentrated, with black fruit, herbs, spice and powerful tannins.
The Carthusians of the monastery of Scala Dei, founded in 1194, developed viticulture here with new knowledge and techniques. After phylloxera and the exodus from the land to the cities it declined sharply; only at the end of the 1980s did a new momentum arise, carried by growers who rediscovered the old vines and the steep slopes. As a Denominació d’Origen Qualificada (DOQ, DOCa in Spanish), Priorat sits, after Rioja, in the highest category of Spanish appellations.
Since 2019 Priorat has classed its wines by origin: the base level DOQ Priorat, Vi de Vila from one of the twelve villages or wine-growing zones, Vi de Paratge from a delimited site, Vinya Classificada and, at the top, Gran Vinya Classificada. The top tier has the strictest rules: a Gran Vinya Classificada may yield no more than 3,000 kilos of red grapes per hectare, and at least 80 per cent of the vines must be 35 years or older. These powerful reds go with game, braised meat, lamb and spicy sausage.