Spend a day in the beautiful region in El Priorat. Enjoy some wines, beautiful views, good food and authentic culture.
Start of the day
We started our day in Gratallops, Priorat, where we first took a walk around the small village while we were waiting for our wine-tour guide. Although the village is very small, you’ll be surprised how many wine cellars you’ll find here. Most of them are offering a tasting, so if you are here for more than a day you have plenty of options to experience the wine culture.
Wine-tasting in the vineyards
There are over a hundred wineries in the Priorat area, many of which can be visited. With a quick search you will find plenty of offerings of tours, tastings and other wine-experiences in this area. There are tours for all kinds of budgets and groups.
The day we went we decided to book a tasting at ‘Celler Devinssi’ because it was including a taste of the latest vintage of their white wine in addition to their red wines. Also, we went in spring where it is not as hot yet, so this winery was offering to take the tasting to the vineyards where we enjoyed the nice views.
If you like to visit ‘Celler Devinssi’, make sure to reserve your spot at least 2 days in advance. This can be done over a text message as indicated on their homepage.
We were picked up by a member of Celler Devinssi and were brought to the foot of a slope. After a couple of meters foot-walk we reached a nice spot under a tree on top of the vinyards. This spot had open views to the vines, the mountains and the village of Gratallops. this view also allowed us to spot many other wineries in this area.
We tried around 3-4 delicious wines with this nice view. We booked the Senzilla-package. Depending which one you go for, there are different offerings included.
One of the wines we were lucky to try was their white ‘Village Wine’. This is rare for the Priorat since less than 5% of the wines produced here are whites.
The guide was absolutely lovely and very knowledgeable. You could here the passion he has for his job, the wines and the Prioriat by the way he talked about them. It was a very nice atmosphere. We were a small group of 6 people and we all sat around a picnic table with beautiful views.
After the wine tasting in the vinyards we were brought back to the town of Gratallops where we were shown their Bodega. Here they produce and bottle the wine. All bottles are filled and labeled by hand.
The tour and experience ended in their newly renovated showroom, where they host some specific experiences especially when the weather does not allow to go to the vineyards.
We couldn’t leave without purchasing a bottle of their white wine, which has a yield per vintage of aprox. 600 bottles.
The Priorat - the land of red wine
Dark mountains filled with vines is the first thing you’ll see entering the region of Priorat. The red wines are recognised among experts around the world. Hard-working family-run wineries produce high-quality wine in this challenging but beautiful landscape.
The region is difficult to access due to its highland location and the difficult bedrock. However, the bedrock and the schist stratum allow the vine-roots to find their way through the dry soil and reach water.
The soils are layers of slate and quartzite. Its colors are the hallmark of the Priorat landscape: dark grey and goldish mountains.
The Priorat terroir is a challenge for the viticulture. Small yields, tight slopes and high terraces. The hard work of the cultivation of this land is rewarded by very high quality wines.
Not only is it hard work to culitivate this land, there are also only few areas where vines can grow making the wines from the region even more limited and selected. The landscape does not allow a large-scale production, which is why you’ll mainly find family-run wineries in this area.
The Priorat - Key facts
This Designation of Origin includes the towns of Bellmunt del Priorat, Gratallops, El Lloar, La Morera de Montsant, Poboleda, Porrera, Torroja del Priorat, La Vilella Alta, La Vilella Baixa and some of the villages of Falset and El Molar.
In the 1980s Priorat was only consisting out of four wineries, today there are more than a hundred, many of which can be visited. The area is dominated by small family-run wineries producting a high quality, limited and selected wine thanks to the difficult conditions of the terroir. The limited amount of this high quality wines is also reflected in the price.
The Prioriat is known as the land of red-wine. The main grape varieties, which 70% of the red wines in this area are produced of are Cariñena and la Garnacha Negra.
Only in recent years have we seen a small amount of white wies emerging from this area.
In addition, Priorat is the Catalan wine region with even stricter winemaking and production requirements and the most wines qualified with the highest distinction.
Read more about the history of El Priorat here.
