Our next wine tour: to the Priorat and Cava wine regions!

On 29 and 30 September 2021 we will have our first 2-day wine tour! We will take you to the Priorat and Cava wine regions north of Valencia, with an overnight stay in Tarragona.

We’ll leave Valencia a bit early as we have a 3-hour drive to the first winery ahead of us, including a (20-minute) stop on the way for a coffee/toilet break.

The Priorat region is a mountainous area (200-800 meters altitude) with spectacular views. The region has around 2000 hectares of vineyards, producing 6.5 million KGs of grapes (almost 93% red grapes) per year, which should be enough for 5-5.5 million bottles.

The area is characterised by its unique soil of black slate and quartz known as llicorella, producing intense and concentrated red wines. It is one of only two wine regions in Spain to qualify as DOCa (Denominación de Origen Calificada), the highest qualification level for a wine region according to Spanish wine regulations, alongside La Rioja. In the Priorat we will visit the Clos Figueras winery, in the heartland of the Priorat, and one of the top wineries of the region.

We’ll do a guided tour of the winery, and then taste the 4 wines they make, while we’re having lunch at the same winery. There will of course also be time to buy wine before we leave.

From the Clos Figueras winery it’s a short drive to the next winery, Scala Dei, the oldest winery of the Priorat region. It was established in the 1840s, and it is here where the Carthusian monks produced their wines since the 12^th century. After the guided tour, during which you will go down into the old cellars, you will get to taste 4 of their wines, with the option of buying as much as you want...

After the visit and wine tasting at Scala Dei we get back on the bus for a 50-minute drive to Tarragona – we will spend the night at the Hotel Astari****, close to the beach and the historical centre of town. You will have time to walk around a bit in the nearby centre of the city, or see the Roman theatre Tarraco.

At around 20:00 – 20:30 dinner will be (re)served at a good local restaurant, not far from the hotel.

The next day, after breakfast, we will set off for a 50-minute drive to the centre of cava production, the village Sant Sadurní d’Anoia. Cava is the Spanish sparkling wine, made in the same way as Champagne. The Catalans learned the tricks of the champagne production from the French. The first Catalan Xampany was made in 1872 by Raventós, still an important producer. Some years ago a select group of cava producers left the DO CAVA and now call their sparkling wine “Corpinnat” – supposed to be better than cava!

In Sant Sadurní we will first visit the Gramona winery, one of the top cava (sorry, this is corpinnat!) producers and probably the most well-known and prestigious one. They started in 1881 with the production of cava. At the winery we’ll do the “historical guided tour”, which is of course followed by a corpinnat tasting…

Next, we go to one of the oldest wineries of Catalonia: Llopart – they are also in the corpinnat group. Old documents show they were already producing wine in 1385! Llopart started making cava in 1887 and is one of the most beautiful cava wineries to visit. We’ll visit the beautiful old winery house as well as the cellars, where they’ll explain us the winery’s history, followed by a corpinnat tasting…

From the winery we walk through the vineyards to the old farmhouse next door for a gourmet lunch (with more cava and wine…), before getting on the bus to go back to Valencia. We’ll stop halfway for a short (toilet) break, and should be back in Valencia by 20:00.

Price: €299 per person, with a minimum of 20 participants. This price includes: transport, entry + wine tastings at 4 top wineries, 2 lunches, 1 dinner, hotel**** with breakfast (sharing double room – supplement for single room is €30).

If you have any questions or want to sign up for the tour, contact Johan:

johan@valenciawineconsulting.com  or  +34 617 027 922