Scala Dei: what to see, where to eat and wineries

Escaladei is a very small hamlet, sheltered in a valley at the foot of the Serra Major de Montsant, with fewer than fifty inhabitants. It grew from the farm estate of the Charterhouse of Scala Dei, where a monk directed the workers who tended the cellars, livestock and fields.

The monastery, founded in 1194 by King Alfonso I (Alfonso II of Aragon), was the first Carthusian house on the Iberian Peninsula, and its prior gave his name to the whole Priorat district. After the 1835 disentailment its properties passed into private hands and the building fell into ruin; declared a national cultural heritage site in 1980, it opened to the public as a museum in 1992.

In 1974 the Cellers de Scala Dei winery was founded in the village, in a 14th-century monastic building, and today Escaladei still has two wineries, two restaurants, a hostal-restaurant, a wine shop and an olive-oil retailer. It is the natural gateway to the charterhouse ruins and to the Montsant trails.

Sources: ca.wikipedia.org · doqpriorat.org · ca.wikipedia.org

Photo: Albert Mestre · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons