Still, while I am waiting for this moment, something keeps turning around in my head. This week Monday, I’ve been invited at the last minute to the prestigious « Cave Legrand » for a tasting. Located in one of the most beautiful cellar of Paris, it was hosting this day a winemaker from Priorat, a wine region in Spain, Catalonia .

I was late and the place was closing, I felt quite embarrassed to try the wines but finally didn’t resist. No regrets at all, they had the taste of paradise: smooth, silky on the palate, fruity and profund – A fabulous jewel! Then I looked up to the winemaker, Dominik Huber, and realised he was young, not even Spanish, passionate and only starting what will probably be the biggest adventure of his life. Fascinating!

Dominik is German, and felt in love with Priorat region when he first came to visit. He then quit his job as a cook in Munich to start making wine. From what I’ve heard, the region is very dry, very rural and looks like it didn’t move for centuries.

Indeed, Priorat was once dead, hit by the war and the philoxera. Since 1988 a group of local and international winemakers came to rediscover the potential of these lands, now experiencing a new age. There are no wine makers here but wine dreamers who live in villages frozen by time and stick to traditional wine making methods. Rocky Road, dryness, you certainly could feel in the middle of the desert, but this seem to not alter Dominik or any of the wine makers ambitions. They take everything from the soil because they believe that nothing can be created, all the potential is already in the fruits. These are tiny and very concentrate grapes from 50 to 100 years vines. To preserve their quality, the best and most gentle techniques should be used.

My crush from the “Terroir Al Limit” was the Arbossar from Dominik Huber, made of Carignan grapes, it has the name of the slope where the grapes grow and is elegant, silky and deep.

Dominik and Eben Sadie, his partner started with little means, they make wine in a warehouse with nothing but the necessary. Still, they have the most important, a professional kitchen and everything needed to give you the best of Priorat unknown region.

If you ever get the chance, go to Priorat and meet the survivals! I know I will.

More details and pictures with the wine dreamers