The Priorat wine region in Spain's Catalonia is one of Spain’s top two wine regions and produces some of Spain’s most highly praised - and highly priced - wines. Watch this video to see how we got on during our Priorat wine tour and our wine tasting at the historic and iconic Scala Dei Priorat Cellars. @winekellertravel

Once upon a time, Catalonia’s Priorat vineyards, in the north-east of Spain, were considered too difficult and unfit to farm, because of poor soils and the steep, terraced slopes. All of this changed in the 1990s however, when the wine world discovered that due to the poor soils and low yields, the quality of Priorat wines could be truly exceptional. Priorat, a very special and remote wine region, with an incredible history, now produces some of Spain’s most highly praised - and highly priced - wines.

We decided to visit Catalonia to discover more about the Priorat wine region and to sample what are said to be some of the best wines in Spain, at a winery which lies at the very heart of Priorat’s history and origins!

Today there are some 2000 hectares of vineyards and more than a third are planted on steep slopes, with a gradient of more than 30°. Over 100 bodegas produce some exceptional wines here. It is a beautiful region, not dissimilar to Portugal’s Douro region, but on a smaller scale, with steep vine-covered slopes, winding roads, small villages and hard-working farming communities. There is a lot of history to discover too….
The history of Priorat stretches back a long way! In fact about 1000 years, when in the 12th century, Carthusian monks travelled here from Provence and established a ‘Priorat’ (a Priory), which became known as ’Cartoixa d’Escaladei’ (Carthusian Monastery of Santa Maria d’Escaladei) in the foothills of the Montsant mountains. And of course, they planted vines, especially the red Garnatxa grape variety - or in French, Grenache. Many of the vines were planted at high altitude, some 500-800 metres above sea level.
Scala Dei Cellars is Priorat. Scala Dei is the name of the consortium of families who purchased the Carthusian Monastery in the early 1840s, to try and promote grape growing on the land. This consortium was the foundation of today’s Priorat DO and the origin of the Scala Dei company today.
The motto of Scala Dei today is to ‘produce wines that are the ultimate expression of the terroir’ and Scala Dei is famed especially for its amazing Garnatxa (Garnacha/Grenache) wines, which are very typical of the unique terroir in this part of the Priorat wine region.

Scala Dei Cellars is located in the village of the same name - ‘Scala Dei’ or ‘Escaladei’ - and located in a valley in the heart of the Montsant mountain range, right next to the famous Monastery Santa Maria de Scala Dei, or priory, after which the Priorat region is named.

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