La Conreria d’Scala Dei
📍 la Morera de Montsant
La Conreria d'Scala Dei is a winery in la Morera de Montsant, next door to the ruins of the Cartoixa d'Scala Dei, the medieval Carthusian priory that gave the whole Priorat region its name. The project took shape in 1997, when winemaker Jordi Vidal and two friends produced their first estate wine, though the groundwork had begun back in 1982 with the purchase and leasing of old vines and the planting of new ones.
The winery farms roughly 26.5 hectares spread across la Morera de Montsant, Escaladei, Poboleda and la Vilella Alta, with vines ranging from 10 to over 100 years old on predominantly llicorella (slate) soils, worked organically. The grapes grown are garnatxa negra, carinyena, syrah, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, garnatxa blanca and pedro ximénez.
Notable wines include the Les Brugueres line, made from century-old garnatxa blanca vines, and the Black Slate red and white (the latter an unusual white for the Priorat). Reds undergo short macerations of under 20 days and age in neutral French and American oak barrels, while the whites see a brief maceration before fermenting and aging in tank.
Imatge: Pere López Brosa · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Sources: doqpriorat.org · vinslaconreria.com · europeancellars.com