Priorat Wines

[Cellar Tours]

We are researching new wine routes to include in our wine tours portfolio, and recently visited the Priorat region of Spain. We met a lot of interesting visionaries in the area including Rene Barbier of Clos Mogador, Carles Pastrana of Clos de l'Obac and the director of Boix. We are creating new routes to the Priorat and would be interested to know which Priorat wines are popular and which wineries would be appealing for people to visit.

Thanks for all of your comments, Genevieve McCarthy, Cellar Tours

www.cellartours.com

[Jason Perlow]

I think any of them will be of interest, at least to wine collectors in the US, as Prioratos are few and far between. The majority of them are not avaliable in the US.

[bugsy]

we sell quite a number of wines from priorat in MD,DC and DE. most are sourced

from christopher cannan and his company europvin...these include clos figueras,

clos nelin,clos mogador,clos martinet,cims de porrera, gran clos-j.m. fuentes...

i'm sure he could arrange visits...he's based in bordeaux.

ph +33(0)5 57 87 43 21 fax... 22

email. europvin@europvin.com

[Marco_Polo]

I love the Priorato, both the wines and this remote historic wine enclave. I haven't been to the area in more than a decade, when we were researching 'The Wine Roads of Spain' but I loved the place and have fond memories.

The obvious starting place for a wine tour is Scala Dei, with its ruined Cartoixa, the symbol, a stairway to heaven. The cellars of the Scala Dei winery are (or were) extremely welcoming and a fascinating range of wines is, I hope, still produced, traditional immense heavyweight Priorato as well as lighter and more modern wines (light means 14.5 degrees here!), including wines made with blends of Garnacha and Cab S. The Hostal Els Troncs was next to the winery and served basic but good food. I recall the house wine, served in the porrón was thick as ink and if you were less than accurate in raising the porrón arm's length from your mouth, the wine squirted out in a shirt-staining black stream.

Another small interesting producer I met was Rafael Barril, a lawyer from Madrid, who was at the time making a fascinating array of artisan-produced wines, both the Masía Barril Clásico Priorato (16.5 degrees!) as well as a lighter Masía Barril Extra (14 degrees), a traditional Añejo vino rancio aged in wood for upwards of a decade, even a vino aromatizado produced by macerating Priorato wine with extracts from herbs grown on the estate (something the monks at Scala Dei would also have done). At the time I visited, Rafael planned one day to have a centro turistico on the estate, complete with botanical herb garden, so I hope the dream of this passionate visionary is now reality. I'd certainly love to return to find out.

A decade ago, the Gratallops cooperative winery was the most important in the Priorato zone.

I'd love to know more fully what's happened here in recent years, whether there has been investment and modernisation, and what styles of wine have subsequently emerged.

Marc

[liamdc]

I have enjoyed 2 bottles of the 2001 Mas Igneus Priorat Barranc dels Closos in the past 2 months. Wine Spectator gives this vintage a '89," and describes the wine as:

Alluring, with roasted fruit, wild herb, smoke and spice. Balanced, but shows a traditional, almost rustic character that will appeal to those who prefer character to polish. Drink now through 2010. 2,000 cases made.

My own palate found this wine to have a roasted berry bouquet, with a jammy and somewhat herbaceous palate, not quite as earthy and rustic as suggested by the WS notes, but very enjoyable.