Priorat

Flatter sites that can be mechanised generally have lower production costs, while steep or high altitude vineyards require more labour and may produce smaller volumes of more concentrated fruit.

Priorat lies inland from the Mediterranean coast and has warm, dry summers.

Vineyards are planted on steep slopes with poor, rocky slate soils.

These soils are often called licorella.

The resulting wines are deeply coloured, full-bodied, and high in alcohol, with concentrated black fruit, high tannins, and mineral complexity.

Steep slopes limit mechanisation, while old vines, low yields, hand harvesting, and oak maturation increase production costs.

So these factors help explain Priorat's premium prices.

Priorat is classified as DOQ, the Catalan equivalent of DOCA.

Always on the third Friday of September, Grenache is one of the most planted grapes on Earth, thin-skinned and sun-loving.

It's the backbone of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and the Garnacha behind Spain's Priorat.

It's also National Cheeseburger Day.

The origins are disputed, with claims from Pasadena, Colorado, and Louisville all taking a piece of the story.

Fait que, mais la beauté de l'endroit.

Donc ça, définitivement, euh, Priorat, en Espagne.

Euh, Bierzo, j'en ai parlé.

En disant, choisir un, c'est tellement difficile.

For now, the economy runs on industry, pharmaceuticals, cars, tech, tourism, food.

If you ask Spaniards from other regions what they go to Catalonia for, a lot of them will say calzatadas, Costa Brava, skiing in the Pyrenees, wine in Priorat and Penedes or rice at the Ebro Delta.

It's a popular destination, even for Spaniards.

If you have to pick like a single day of the year to be in Barcelona, honestly, I would maybe pick April 23rd, San Jordi.

But one of the first places that I went when I decided to travel alone was to Spain, and I drove from Barcelona up to Bilbao, west to Galicia, south to Lisbon, across to Madrid and Cuenca.

back to, I was in Valencia, then to Priorat.

So each time stopping in distinct winemaking regions.

And so,

I mean, the wines of like Galicia to Priorat, what a jump.

Completely different.

Definitely.

Yeah, I mean, the, the challenge, the fact that we're not, um, not finishing in Madrid, um, and sort of ba- you know, basically sort of running down the eastern coast of Spain really was, uh, a good cha- a positive challenge, shall we say.

You, you know, um, I mean, starting up in the north, the northeast where we've got several regions, Priorat, Montsant, um, you know, Al- Penedès.

There is a wealth of riches up there that I must admit, uh, some of the premium pricing of wines in that region helped, um, helped, helped us make the selection.

But as well, the wines are, the, it's a great climate, as we know from Languedoc.

It's a great climate for growing grapes and it's, you know, a great climate for, for producing absolutely superb wines.

And, uh, the region itself, the, the region itself, whether that be sort of, um, you know, Montsant, um, whether that be sort of Priorat, Penedès, all deliver such phenomenal wines.

And I think, um, it really was almost an embarrassment of riches, I suppose.

So-

So, so they're even better than that because they're doing it with the blends.

Oh, this is a Priorat.

Well, Priorat could have five different wa- uh, grapes in it, or a s- you know.

Yeah.

Although it, it is quite common for, for certain regions to be 100% of a variety, but yes.

We're starting in the Gold Coast, perhaps...

Well, yeah, perhaps they don't need lights there in the middle of the day, um, because we're in, starting n- northwest of Reus, just south of the Priorat wine region, and then going south because we have to [laughs] yeah, we have to go south to get to where the rest of the stages are.

But then they double back through the Terres de l'Ebre and go through the hills, come back down, and finish into a headwind.

So they go along this canal that comes off the Mediterranean.

Oh, this is a nice wine region.

No free ads, but, um, Priorat region-

No free ads, but free ads

... no free ads, but the Priorat region, north of Reus and Tarragona.

If you got no...

If you, if you...

Mm

... their native, uh, Catalonia, from Penedès to the, the rugged hills of, of Priorat and beyond.

And, and that's where some of Spain's most expensive wines actually come from, isn't it?

Mm, mm.