This last installment in our series about the Priorat wine region in Spain is about our visit to the Conreria D’Scala Dei Winery last November. The winery takes its name from the nearby monastery where the Carthusian monks planted vineyards and began making wine in the 12th C.
The winery at Conreria D’Scala Dei is much larger than the other wineries we visited (Clos D’Lobac and Mas Doix) and has an annual production of about 68,000 bottles of wine, which is significantly more than the other wineries. On the day of our visit, we ended up doing the tour with a group of about 30 Spaniards who were touring the region. The tour itself was given by the winemaker, a gentleman named Hyuska, who led us through the wine making journey, from when the grapes come in to how the wine is bottled. We were also able to sample the wine at various stages of the process.
Conreria Scala Dei produces a white wine that is made from Garnacha (or Grenache) grapes under the label Les Brugueres, and a red that is a blend of Garnacha, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah and Cariñena, under the label La Conreria. The other two red wines produced are the award-winning Iugiter and Iugiter Selecció wines. The Iugiter wines are aged in French and American oak casks for 8-14 months, and bottle aged for at least 1 year. The Iugiter Selecció wine is aged in French Allier oak casks for 12-18 months, and bottle aged for at least 2 years.
The tour of the winery ends in a beautiful brick-walled room that houses a number of vaults that contain the private collections of patrons of the winery. Hyuska served us samples of the four different wines produced, and bottles of wines were also available for purchase.
Tours of La Conreria D’Scala Dei are offered from Monday through Saturday and can be booked online at the winery’s website at scaladei.org. The cost of the tour and tasting during our visit was 10 Euros per person.
Photo credit: © Christopher Pappas
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