Priorat is the Catalan name for the Priorato region, one of Spain's most amazing and exciting wine producing regions. This region, where monks in the seclusion of the hinterland of Tarragona in southern Catalonia had been making wine since the 12th century, was largely forgotten - cooperatives were still producing unremarkable wine on just 600 hectares. The amazing revolution and incredibly rapid development into an absolute top wine growing region began with the rediscovery of the remote Priorat by René Barbier and Alvaro Palacio, who began making wine here in the late 1980s, early 1990s. What they found were very old vines of Grenache and Carinena (Carignan) varieties on barren, rocky slate terraces, from which they pressed a dense, complex and evolving wine from homeopathic-like yields of about five to six hectolitres per hectare that astonished the experts. Alone, the L'Ermita of Alavaro Palacio has for years been considered one of the most precious rarities in the world. Thanks to the increasing interest and the associated establishment of new wineries, today there are already 1,700 hectares under vine again, which, however, have to be worked by hand due to the steepness of the sites. The wines of Priorat are today among the very best red wines in Spain and in international comparison also among the absolute top class. However, they are also priced in the absolute premium range due to the low yields, the difficult management of the vineyards and the scarcity of production.
