Priorat Recommendations

[Michael McNally]

Hello all

I am visiting Spain in October and have three days in Priorat. I am there for the wine. Does anyone have any recommendations? I have begun reaching out to producers to try to arrange tastings as I have not been to the region before (and not been to Spain for 20 years!). I am staying in Gratallops, but will have a car. I am interested in tasting good wine, but not super-premiums.

Thanks in advance

Michael

[Mahmoud Ali]

This is what I call a coincidence. Just a few days ago I was given a link to Michel Hudin's website and, having already perused it, it was the first thing that came to mind when I saw your post, and sure enough when I checked there was an article on visiting Priorat - and it's current.

https://www.hudin.com/how-to-visit-the-priorat-wine-region/

Mahmoud.

[JDSJDS]

I spent 4 nights in Priorat about 7 years ago. It's a beautiful region, very sleepy for a wine region (at least back then). It was sometimes hard to find a place to eat, especially on Sundays! If you are staying at Cal LLop in Gratallops, which I very much recommend, they were very helpful in getting appointments to various wineries. We didn't book anything beforehand and managed to visit a number of interesting wineries, from tiny places to big estates (e.g., Clos Mogador). A fee is charged in all cases. Two or three visits per day would be the maximum: tastings were usually 1-3 hours long, often including a walk among the vines. We usually did one in the morning, then have a long lunch - when everything else is closed - and then a second winery visit in the mid afternoon, when wineries opened again.

We enjoyed visiting the Scala Dei buildings (Cartoixa d'Escaladei) and tasting at the nearly Cellar Scala Dei, and there was also an outstanding olive oil shop/producer in a nearby village whose name escapes me. Again, the people at Cal Llop recommended it. There is also a nice restaurant in the village square where the olive oil producer is. There were a number of very small, attractive villages to wander through. I also remember visiting a cave which housed people during WWII, which was an interesting area. Terrior al Limit is also very good producer.

While I loved my visit there, I have to say that the wines didn't really move me much. They were typically very very ripe, heavy wines that averaged about 15%. But I hear they are dialing back ripeness and alcohol levels and some producers are dropping the use of cabernet and syrah that I thought never added anything positive to the indigenous grapes of the region. Some of the old vine, single variety grenache and carignan were excellent.I also really enjoyed the white (grenache blanc) wines that expressed minerality and weren't too heavy. Very nice in a area which can get very hot!

Enjoy your visit, October sounds like a great time to visit weather wise, although perhaps some wineries might still be harvesting then? I'm not sure of that though.

[maybs]

Was there a few years ago on a day trip out of Barcelona. It’s an snarfing tourist destination in that apparently until relatively recently many cellar doors didn’t take visitors. A number didn’t really seem to understand wine tourism. That being said most we went to were very pleased to see people enthusiastic about wine and their region and were very hospitable. I thought Pasanau were particularly good hosts and Clos Dominic was very very interesting