From the atlas
Costers del Priorat
At A Glance
Producer: Costers del Priorat Region: Priorat DOCa, Catalonia, Spain Winemaker: Jose Mas Barberà Grapes: Garnatxa (Grenache), Carinyena (Samsó / Carignan) Style: Cool mineral reds from old-vine llicorella slate parcels Range: Eight wines: six dry reds, one sweet, one rancio Cellar: El Molar, inside an old Roman magnesium mine
---
The Producer
Priorat built its modern reputation on density. The appellation, a Denominació d'Origen Qualificada in the mountains of southern Catalonia, became internationally known in the 1990s for reds of considerable weight: concentrated, extracted, high in alcohol, and driven by the sheer force of old Garnatxa and Carinyena vines growing through fractured llicorella slate. Costers del Priorat takes those same grapes on that same rock and makes the opposite argument.
Winemaker Jose Mas Barberà runs the cellar from El Molar, inside what was once a Roman magnesium mine. The range covers eight wines: six dry reds, one sweet, and one rancio, an oxidized style traditional to this part of Catalonia. All the reds come from old-vine parcels spread across multiple villages in the appellation. None of them taste like the version of Priorat that made the region's name abroad. The wines are mineral, vegetal, and focused, carrying a cool, sharp edge that the llicorella soil delivers when a cellar refuses to smooth it away.
---
Place
Priorat DOCa covers a folded, semi-arid landscape in the province of Tarragona, southeast of Lleida. The appellation sits in a natural bowl formed by the Serra del Montsant mountains, which trap heat from the Mediterranean while channelling cooler air down through the valleys at night. Villages such as Torroja del Priorat, Bellmunt del Priorat, and El Molar each sit at slightly different elevations and aspects, so that a south-facing vineyard in Torroja and a cooler north-influenced plot in Bellmunt can produce grapes with genuinely different ripeness, acidity, and aromatic character, even when planted with the same varieties.
Llicorella is the rock that defines Priorat as much as any grape. It is a dark, fractured slate and quartz composite that drains fast, forces vine roots deep, and contributes a cold mineral sharpness to the finished wine. Vines grown on llicorella yield less fruit per vine and ripen slowly, which is part of why old-vine Garnatxa and Carinyena from this appellation carry both concentration and acidity without the heaviness that extraction can bring.
---
Soil And Site
The cellar at El Molar draws from parcels across several Priorat villages, each bringing different aspect and microclimate. Mas Alsera, in Torroja del Priorat, faces south and sits in a warmer, more sheltered position. Sant Martí, in Bellmunt del Priorat, is cooler, with more exposure to air movement from the surrounding ridgelines. Both vineyards sit on llicorella slate, so the mineral throughline is consistent, but the thermal contrast between them is audible in the wines: Mas Alsera fruit tends toward ripe, generous fruit weight, while Sant Martí contributes the sharp, cold-mineral edge and vegetal freshness that runs through the single-vineyard cuvées.
Old vines on llicorella produce small, thick-skinned grapes with concentrated colour and flavour. The cellar keeps those characteristics intact by fermenting with only native vineyard yeasts rather than commercial inoculants, working with vessels that preserve rather than transform: amphora, cement tanks, demi-muids, and large old foudres. No new oak. The fruit comes through with its mineral load, its vegetal lift, and the particular freshness that slow-ripened Carinyena holds even at 14.5 percent alcohol.
---
Story
Priorat's reputation for power was not accidental. When a handful of producers began planting and bottling in the appellation seriously from the late 1980s onward, the style that emerged was shaped by the demands of international markets that valued concentration and body above all else. The appellation's old Garnatxa and Carinyena vines, on their difficult slate terraces, delivered impressive material, and the wineries that won early acclaim built their identities around extraction, new oak, and high-impact wines. For a while, that was the story of Priorat.
Costers del Priorat's position runs in a different direction. The cellar chose native yeasts, vessel variety over new barrels, and village-level wines that frame Priorat as a landscape with multiple personalities rather than a single concentrated force. Pissarres, the estate's broadest wine, is built from two villages with contrasting microclimates, and is intended to show how different those villages taste when the grapes are handled with minimal intervention. Clos Cypres and Clos Alzina, both single-vineyard reds from old vines in Bellmunt, take the argument further: they come from the same village and the same slate, but from different old-vine blocks, and they land in the glass as two clearly different wines. The strategy is accumulative. Each bottle adds a line to the same argument: that Priorat's llicorella produces wines of mineral focus and village specificity when a cellar does not override them.
---
Vineyards And Cellar
All the reds come from old vines on llicorella. Old vines on this rock produce reduced yields and deep-rooted plants that draw mineral character from the fractured substrate rather than from surface warmth alone. The grapes ripen late and unevenly, which is why hand-selection matters and why a native-yeast fermentation reads differently from one inoculated with a commercial strain: the wild fermentation carries more aromatic complexity from the fruit itself, with more variation in tempo and texture across batches.
The vessels do specific jobs. Amphora and cement tanks preserve the mineral and aromatic freshness of the grape without adding oxygen or wood flavour. Demi-muids and large old foudres allow a gentle integration of oxygen over ageing without imposing oak tannin or vanilla notes. Pissarres spends twelve months in vessel before bottling. The result across all six dry reds is wine without the creamy, oak-forward finish that new barrels produce: the tannin is the grape's, the freshness is the slate's, and the aromatic character comes from the yeast already living in each parcel.
---
Wines
The range covers eight wines. Six are dry reds, built from Garnatxa and Carinyena in varying proportions across different villages and vineyard blocks. One is a sweet wine. One is a rancio, an oxidized style aged over time in a way that develops a distinctive oxidative, nutty, and dried-fruit character typical to traditional Catalan winemaking.
Pissarres is the entry into the range and the broadest terroir statement. It blends Garnatxa (approximately 80 percent) and Carinyena (approximately 20 percent) from Mas Alsera in Torroja del Priorat and Sant Martí in Bellmunt del Priorat. The two vineyards sit at different aspects and temperatures, and the blend brings them together into one wine: dark red, with meaty and vegetal freshness, balanced fruit, and a sharp cold mineral note from the llicorella. Aged twelve months before bottling, at 14.5 percent alcohol, it is full-bodied without heaviness.
Clos Cypres is a single-vineyard red from old vines at Sant Martí. The aromas run to blackberry, balsamic notes, and the dried-herb and brushwood character that old Carinyena on slate tends to produce. On the palate it is simultaneously mature and fresh: the fruit has concentration, but it holds an edge of cool mineral acidity that keeps it from tipping into heaviness.
Clos Alzina is a single-vineyard red from a different old-vine block, also within Bellmunt. Where Cypres is lean and cool, Alzina is fuller, with more aromatic complexity: Mediterranean scrubland, ripe figs, olives, and dried herbs combine with the intensity that very old vines produce. The tannins are silky and fine, the acidity mineral-fresh, and the overall weight is considerable without losing the cool-rock sharpness that runs through every wine in this cellar.
Three additional dry reds complete the range. Their names have not been verified in sourced material; they follow the same village and single-vineyard logic as the wines above.
---
In The Glass
The first thing that comes off Costers del Priorat reds is not fruit. It is mineral: a cold, slate-edged lift that reads almost like crushed stone. On Pissarres this arrives with dark-red fruit, a meaty depth, and a vegetal freshness that sits just below the surface. The mid-palate is full, the tannin is present but not coarse, and the finish carries the llicorella's sharp, clean cold note long after the fruit has faded.
On Clos Cypres, the mineral and vegetal character is more forward. Blackberry and balsamic notes open with dried brushwood behind them; the palate is concentrated, maturely structured, and then fresh in a way that feels like a drop in temperature rather than an absence of fruit. Clos Alzina opens differently, with more aromatic intensity and breadth: Mediterranean herbs, ripe figs, and olives build through the nose, and the palate adds more body, richer tannin, and a wide mineral finish. Both wines carry acidity that lifts the finish rather than leaving it flat.
Native-yeast fermentation and no new oak mean the wines carry nothing borrowed. The aromatic range is the grape's, the freshness is the slate's, and the only signature the cellar adds is the vessel it chose to age in.
---
A Bottle To Understand It
Start with Pissarres. It is a blend of Garnatxa and Carinyena from two villages, Torroja del Priorat and Bellmunt del Priorat, aged twelve months in vessel with no new oak, fermented on native yeasts. At 14.5 percent alcohol it is a full wine, but the llicorella mineral note keeps it sharp and cool throughout: dark red in colour, meaty and vegetal in freshness, with balanced fruit and a cold-stone finish that lingers. It covers both key vineyards, both primary grapes, and the estate's complete winemaking approach in one bottle. No other wine in the range puts the whole argument in front of you so clearly.
---
Anecdote
Jose Mas Barberà chose his cellar location with the same logic he applies to his vineyards: what the ground gives, keep. The cellar at El Molar sits inside what was once a Roman magnesium mine, below the village, inside the rock. The same llicorella that fractures under vine roots and bleeds mineral character into the grapes runs through the walls of the space where those grapes are fermented and aged. Whether Mas Barberà built the operation there as a statement or simply found the space useful is unrecorded, but the proximity is exact: the rock that shapes the wine is the rock the wine is made inside. Every amphora and cement tank and large old foudre sits within the same geological material that a Pissarres vine is pushing its roots through, thirty metres above, on a sun-facing terrace in the Priorat hills.
---
Final Word
Costers del Priorat is a direct argument with a regional reputation. Priorat built its international profile on extracted, powerful reds; this cellar has organised its entire range around village character, spontaneous fermentation, and mineral cool focus. Jose Mas Barberà ages every red in vessels that preserve rather than transform, ferments on the yeasts already living in each parcel, and bottles wines that carry the cold-stone signature of llicorella without the weight that new oak and extraction add. For anyone who came to Priorat through its famous dense reds and wondered whether the appellation had another register, Costers del Priorat is the answer.
---
Sources
- https://costersdelpriorat.com/en/index.html
- https://demaisonselections.com/costers/
- https://www.costersdelpriorat.com/en/pissarres.html
- https://demaisonselections.com/portfolio-items/costers-pissarres/
- https://www.costersdelpriorat.com/en/clos-cypres.html
- https://www.costersdelpriorat.com/en/clos-alzina.html