I was in the States on two separate trips in June and only got back last week, hence the lack of blog posts. My apologies.

Lee, our friend David and I went down to the Priorat wine region for a fun weekend of wine tasting, eating and exploring. The drive down without air conditioning wasn't awesome, but it was great once we got there. First we stopped at Cal Pla in the town of Porrera. We got a lot of strange stares from the locals, so evidentally the place hasn't gotten too overrun by tourists yet. The winemaker, Joan, actually remembered us from our last visit there with Pete in Nov 2006. He was very gracious taking us on a tour of their wine making facilities and cellars and letting us taste three of their wines. Everyone in the town used to make wine in the 1800s, so he said almost all of the houses have cellars underneath, but only 8 or so families still make wine. We bought a little bit of everything we tasted (Mas d'en Compte Blanc 2005, Cellar Cal Pla Negre 2005, and Mas d'en Compte Negre 2006).




Next we drove about 30 mins to the town of Poboleda, where Senora Conchita Porta and her daughter met us to take us to the vineyards and winery of Celler Burgos-Porta outside of the town. They claim the road is "under construction," but I think the correct term would be "to be eventually constructed." Once there, we met her husband Salvador Burgos who took us on a tour of their land. His family has been making wine in Priorat for three generations, but normally with a co-op. After seeing some big wineries in Napa Valley in the 90s, Salvador was impressed with their tasting rooms and facilities surrounded by the vineyards. In Priorat, most of the growing takes place outside the towns and then the other processes take place in the town. So he bought an old, crumbling masia (catalan country home) and turned it into a gorgeous winery and tasting room. He had a cellar built into the hill beside it. He's tried to use plenty of sustainable materials, use gravity instead of pumps, and continue his organic process. The results are some pretty tasty wines. They just had three wines rated with 92s and 93s by Robert Parker: Mas Sinen Negre 2006, Mas Sinen Coster 2006, and Mas Sinen Tradition 2004 (a fact Salvador was very proud of). After tasting a few wines and securing an invite to their Calcotada this Fall, we headed out around 9pm to begin our journey to Siurana, which was described by their daughter with wide eyes and series of hand gestures approximating killer switch backs.


The switchbacks weren't too killer, but coupled with the fading daylight and Lee's insitence on recounting her recent nightmare about driving off of a cliff were. We arrived to the town of Siurana at about 10pm. This article was the genesis of our trip so we booked a night at Hotel Siuranella and dinner at Els Tallers. So upon arrival we drove into town, literally into town, and apparently that was a big no no. I should have known when I saw all the cars parked at the entrance to town and based on the fact that the streets were about 4 inches wider than my Saab. So doing about a 18-point turn on a hill in the dark to get back out of town was a little stressful, but we managed and made it in time for dinner.

After our killer eating trip to San Sebastian, dinner was not hugely exciting. Lee was pretty stoked about the pipets of olive oil to start. The suckling pig and the lamb were also excellent. Dessert was blah.


We got up early the next day to scope out the views, wander around town and then drive back to BCN. All in all, it was a great 24 hour roadtrip.