Cellers Sant Rafel
📍 Pradell de la Teixeta
Cellers Sant Rafel began when Pilar Just and Xavi Peñas, a couple raised in the 1960s generation encouraged to leave village life for the city, chose to return to Priorat instead. After building professional careers in Barcelona, they bought a 46-hectare estate in Pradell de la Teixeta, the former Mas d'en Rafel, to recover what they missed about small-village life and raise their children there.
The winery practices environmentally conscious viticulture and has worked to restore the dry-stone walls (pedra en sec) that earlier generations built to terrace this mountainous land, which runs from forest down to streambed. Separated from the Mediterranean only by the Serra de Llaberia, the estate is reached each evening by the garbinada sea breeze, which moderates summer heat and slows grape ripening.
The estate produces two wine ranges under DO Montsant: Joana (Joana, Xavi and Blanca), younger and more overtly aromatic, and Solpost (Origen, Blanc, Rosat, Garnatxa and Carinyena), a more classically styled, terroir-focused line.
Imatge: Medol · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Sources: cellerssantrafel.com · cellerssantrafel.com · cellerssantrafel.com