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Wandering among the medieval ruins of Escaladei, high in the hills between Barcelona and Valencia, it’s hard to believe you’re at the heart of one of the world’s most fashionable wine-producing regions.
This monastery, whose name means “ladder of God”, occupies an eerie, windblown spot, just below the peak of the Serra de Montsant. It was founded almost 900 years ago, it is said, after a lone shepherd boy dreamt he saw a ladder reaching up to heaven. But these days its entrance arch, adorned with a statue of virgin and child, is overgrown with weeds; looking through it, you see only the mountain behind. This once-famous monastery is little more than a façade, its altar no more than grass.
But then the Cartoixa del’ Escaladei, to give the place its full title, is where the Priorat wine region of Spain got its famous name. It was the oldest Carthusian monastery in Spain, the place where winemaking was revived on the Iberian Peninsula 900 years ago, for the first time since the Roman occupation. And its modern-day ruination stands in marked contrast to the new activity on the slopes below.
In the past two and a half decades, a group of young winemakers have arrived in Priorat – and, working on the principle that an old wine region is a great wine region, they’ve transformed it from the most impoverished district of Catalonia to the home of Spain’s best-known wine bar Rioja. And where the wine lovers have come, the visitors – and the money – have followed
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Carles Pastrana, from nearby Tarragona, was among the first of the new wave of winemakers to come to Priorat in 1979. When he first arrived, he paid the equivalent of only €900 a hectare for his land – and that was three times the going rate, at a time when many were surviving on their grandparents’ pensions. These days, Pastrana can attract that kind of money for just a couple cases of Clos de L’Obac, his most famous wine.
Pastrana, who runs Costers del Siurana winery (www.costersdelsiurana.com), says three events led to the decline of the Priorat region before his arrival: the 19th-century sale of Escaladei’s lands; an outbreak of phylloxera that devastated vineyards in 1900; and mass tourism that pulled people away from Priorat to the coast in the 1960s.
“We found Priorat with almost no vineyards,” Pastrana says, “only a small cooperative in the villages. It was a good opportunity for us to rebuild – and because we were young and crazy, we began.”
Pastrana started rebuilding the steep, slatey terraces, repairing dry stone walls, replanting the vines – in short, reinvigorating the “terroir” that had given Priorat wine its famous reputation.
It took 10 years to create their first vintage, but by 1991 the wines of Priorat were already getting international attention. Now Pastrana and other famous winemakers such as Alvaro Palacios are selling half their wines to the global market.
It was the origins of winemaking at Escaladei that attracted Palacios, the son of a Rioja winemaker who had studied in Bordeaux, to the region.
“The monastic origin of wine, which survived through history, is a guarantee of quality, of something else,” he tells Redhot. “The spiritual side is always there – and also what was amazing are the little plots. If you are a romantic, you fall in love with this wine, with everything here.”
There is much in the rocky, mountainous Priorat region, dotted with olive and almond trees, for the visitor to fall in love with. Hikers and climbers can head to high villages such as Siurana – an eagle’s nest of a place with narrow streets, a 12th-century church and sheer cliffs falling away on three sides. Well-signed footpaths, or senderos, lead from village to village in these parts, while horse-riding, climbing and mountain-biking are also popular.
But according to Palacios, it’s not just the visitors who are returning. “Many descendants of the area came back to the Priorat region,” he says. “Now it’s a glorious place with many new restaurants, with a lot of people visiting us. It’s a phenomenon.”
Others, says Pastrana, live in towns such as Tarragona and take advantage of the improved roads to spend more time in the villages their ancestors called home.
Walkers and wine lovers can stay either in farms such as Mother’s Garden (www.mothersgarden.org) near Falset, or in attractive casas rurales in the sleepy village of Scala Dei, at the foot of the road to Escaladei monastery – as they seek bargains on wines that go for hundreds of euros back home.
Canny visitors can include Priorat in a tour of monasteries and wineries strung all the way from Barcelona to Valencia.
If you start out at the famous Montserrat monastery, above Barcelona, you can head through the more industrialised Penedès region – where many major wine-producing companies are based – until you reach the “Cistercian triangle” of monasteries near Prades.
Of the three Cistercian monasteries in the region, the Monestir de Poblet is the most impressive. Set in an attractive valley of vineyards, it has Gothic cloisters and a freshwater spring – but the monastery remains active, and an air of repression hangs over it to this day.
From the Masia del Cadet, a 15th-century farmhouse in the nearby village of Les Masies, walkers can climb up to a mirador for fine views of the monastery below.
Once you’ve visited Priorat, cross the Rio Ebre, which divides Catalonia from Valencia. The mudflat delta of this river is a major attraction for birdwatchers, but for mountain lovers, the villages of El Maestrat beyond the river are the place to take your car.
In this more economically depressed region, you get a sense of what the villages of Priorat must have been like 20 years ago; and though there are few places to stay, you won’t forget the wild beauty of the drive.
Resting places include the striking 14th-century hill town of Morella – which is close enough to the coast to attract tourists – and the castle villages of Mora de Rubielos and (bizarrely) Rubielos de Mora.
The main Valencian wine region, though, is Utiel-Requena. Time your visit here to coincide with one of the many fiestas celebrating the grape harvest, in late August and September, and you’ll finish off your holiday in wild style. Just try not to imagine what the monks of Priorat would have made of that when they brought wine to Spain almost nine centuries ago.
Four famous wine producers of Priorat
- Alvaro Palacios
The flagship wine is L’Ermita, which goes for up to €300 a bottle overseas, while Les Terrasses is a more everyday wine.
- Costers del Siurana
Otherwise known as Clos de L’Obac after its most famous wine.
- Clos Mogador
Only produces one wine, which tends to divide the critics.
- Vall Llach
Founded in the early 1990s by singer Lluís Llach and Enric Costa.
The Madrid-based company Cellar Tours (pictured) offers luxury food and wine tours of this region. tel: +34 91 521 3939, www.cellartours.com
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