Rooms with Views

I’m afraid we continue to let Quima down by not wanting any omelettes or juevos. Not to mention our failure to even make a dent in the 3 mini-croissants, muffin, roll, and 3 slices of bread *each* that we were supposed to eat at breakfast along with the wonderful Iberian ham and cheese. Also a word here about wifi (in France we say wee-fee). Here at Mas Figueras we have the best wifi we’ve had for the whole trip. It is fast and it just connects. It’s true that it’s an open connection, but we trust Quima and Paco and the nearest neighbors aren’t near enough to get on. Worst wifi award so far goes to Rubens in London, which sometimes you could get on with a phone but not a laptop, and sometimes vice versa, and sometimes not at all, and it was slow besides. Final travel comment: both here and in France when you leave a village there’s a sign on the road with the name of the village with a diagonal red line through it. I keep hoping we’ll go through the village of Ank.

Today’s guide was Anya, who is originally from Poland but has been living in this area with her British husband for 9 years. She took us to our first stop, Clos Mogador, one of the pioneering wineries of the “new” Priorat. We were excited to go there because this was one of the first wines we tasted when we knew we were going to the Priorat, and also we call it Clos Moogiedor. It’s a much smaller winery than we were expecting, given that Dave had found the wine in the Friendly Vine, a wine store in Forest Grove.

We started by meeting Katya, formerly of East Germany, and she took us out to one of their terraced vineyards planted in the 1980s. Rene Barbier, the owner, vigneron, and winemaker, has an interesting philosophy that the vines should grow in a more natural habitat – kind of like free-range chickens – so his vineyards also have olive trees and in the summer they grow wheat between the rows. There were quite a few grapes left on the vines after harvest – the yield is so low that a second picking isn’t economically feasible – so I enjoyed that part of the trip very much. 

When we got back to the winery they were pressing grapes in their basket press, which was not at all what we were expecting. It was actually a stack of wicker or straw baskets which were placed on a central pole and then squished. We’d never seen anything like it, although later in the village we did see one the frame of one. We went downstairs to look at their cellar, which is interesting because one side of it is a slanted rock face, and then upstairs to taste 3 wines. The wines were all good, and I especially enjoyed their Nelin, a white Grenache/macabeu blend . It was very full bodied and had a nice acidity – a perfect wine for smoked mussels. We also tried their olive oil. It was a particularly nice time of just sitting and chatting with Anya and Katya, who seemed to have all the time in the world, a hallmark of the Priorat. Also this winery had my favorite bathroom so far, a very cheery tiled room with a great faucet.

Then we headed back into Gratallops (“scratching wolves”) for lunch with wine pairings at Clos Figueras. We started with 3 kinds of pate, 5 kinds of salumi, and a bowl of arbequina olives (by the way, here it is pronounced just as it is spelled, not with the enye that we say in Oregon – ar-be-ki-na, not ar-be-ki-nya) and a salad from their garden. So I was happy already. The main course and dessert were both good too. We also tasted a white and three reds, which were all well made and very good. The highlight there was descending the spiral staircase to their barrel room, which used to be a cistern – very interesting. Many of the wineries we’ve visited, this one included, are right in town, in a house or a couple of houses. Very different from home. We had a little time before lunch so we drove up a very rutted and bumpy road to a local Hermitage.

Before lunch we’d visited with a potter around the corner from the restaurant who was making the clay amphoras that many of the winemakers are experimenting with. He described the process of building them from coils, letting them dry, and firing them. His studio used to house the village olive press, and he’s a person of many interests, so it was a fascinating place. After lunch we spent more time walking around the town and chatting, and managed to get ourselves completely turned around. 

This village was completely full of cats – everywhere you looked there was a cat, and we even found one who looked just like Kepler. I took a lot of cat pictures and picturesque narrow street pictures, because (1) they are cats and picturesque narrows streets, for pete’s sake, just demanding to be photographed and (b) they have a chance of coming out and giving you a feel for the place, unlike the landscape scenery pictures which fall hopelessly short of conveying the beauty and grandeur of the place.

Dave and Anya in the church square

Once we found the Orange, we moved on up to another village, La Figeura, to taste wine at Ficaria winery. (Figuera is Catalan for fig, ficaria is Latin for fig, but I have seen exactly 1 fig tree the whole time we have been here, even though the word figuera is everywhere). Jaume, the owner/vigneron/vintner, does biodynamic farming, complete with cow horns, even though there are no cows at all in this region. He drove us up to the top of another peak to look at a terraced vineyard with 80 year old vines. If the vines weren’t so old they would just tear them out because it’s a terrible place to grow wine, but they are, so they don’t and besides, the view is terrific. Jaume’s English was very limited, but he and Anya spoke in a mix of Catalan and Spanish and sometimes he spoke to us in Spanish also. There were a huge number of flies up there – they’re pervasive here – and I wondered if the flies liked the biodynamics too. Jaume and Anya had a long discussion about why no-one keeps goats or sheep, and the general decision was that it is too much work in this dry climate. But it does seem odd to Dave and me that they are not more self-sufficient with their food. The drive up and back was similar to the Hermitage drive, and they were both a little scary – when you’re bouncing around over ruts and stones it is a little nervewracking to be a foot from the edge of the cliff.

We got back and did the winery tour, which was pretty standard except for the size – quite small – and the walls, which were painted in meaningful colors. For example, the walls on one side of the stairs up from the barrel room were greyish-yellow on one side (limestone) and brick red on the other (sandstone). The winery and barrel room are very utilitarian and a little messy. Then you go up the stairs to the tasting room and it’s completely different – sparkling clean, beautifully designed, focusing on a wall-length window looking out on the beautiful landscape. Also upstairs the walls are blue for the sky, green for the vines, and burgundy for the wine. We tried two wines, and bought one – the Pater, 100% garantxa, to bring home because it was delightful and because when we drink it we’ll imagine we are sitting with Anya and Jaume overlooking the beautiful landscape.

A brief interlude to talk about the something that might be confusing here. The region of Spain we’re in is Catalonia, and the region of Catalonia we’re in is the Priorat. It’s a geographical location. What gets confusing is that part of the geographic Priorat is the wine region (Denominacio d’origen) called Montsant, and part is the DOQ (DO quality) called Priorat. Montsant DO surrounds Priorat DOQ like an egg white surrounds a yolk. The main distinction is that Montsant is limestone, sandstone, and conglomerate rock, while Priorat is slate, locally known as Llicorella. Got it?

That was our last stop with Anya for the day, so she drove us back to the hotel and dropped us off. I did a little blogging while Dave looked to see which of the wines we tasted are available in the US, and then at 8 we headed downstairs where Ferran was waiting to drive us to El Cellerde L’Aspic, a few kilometers away in Falset. We were kind of nervous, but everyone there spoke English and also they had a tasting menu with wine and cheese, which we ordered. The food was very good but not revolutionary. The most interesting part was a group of 8 people at a big table in the corner, who tasted through 11 different wines while we ate, and then moved to a different table and had dinner and drank even more wine. At least 2 of them were local producers, and during the wine tasting they were talking about the history and features of the area and the wines. Meanwhile in a different corner one local came in with 2 non-locals, and they ate dinner while all staring into their handheld devices, and didn’t have any wine at all. This is a beautiful place, but if you’re not drinking the wine you’re missing half the beauty!

Ferran was there at 10:30 to pick us up – the timing was about perfect. It’s our first clear night here so we stopped on the deck to look at the stars, but it’s been a long day and it’s time to call it a night.