Llicorella

Spanish name for a special soil type of small-leaved slate in the Spanish DOCa area Priorato (Catalonia); see there.

The DOCa area (Priorat in Catalan) in the middle of the province of Tarragona in the Spanish region of Catalonia is named after the monastery Priorato de Scala Dei (Priorate of the Ladder of God). According to legend, a shepherd boy saw angels descending on a "ladder to heaven" in the middle of the 12th century. As a result, Carthusian monks founded the monastery named after this incident in 1163. Wine is mentioned by the Franciscan monk Francisc Eiximenis (1340-1409) in his work "Lo Crestia". He describes the "decent drinking of wine" and advises mixing the strong wine from the priory with water. Already in the Middle Ages, Priorato was one of the most important wine-growing regions in Spain. The decline began in 1835 when the monks left the monastery. Then, towards the end of the 19th century, phylloxera came and destroyed the then 17,000 hectares of vineyards. Only a small part of it was replanted afterwards.

By Till F. Teenck - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, Link

From the mid-1980s onwards, "young, wild winemakers" such as Álvaro Palacios from the eponymous winery, René...

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Llicorella

Priorato

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