RICARD ROFES

Located by the site of a 900-year-old former monastery, Cellers de Scala Dei is a winery immersed in the robust history of Priorat. Sarah Jane Evans MW meets the winemaker who is eloquently telling the region’s story – and paving the way for its future – through its wines

- Sarah Jane Evans MW

Vineyard visits with Ricard Rofes guarantee car sickness and excitement in equal measure. Car sickness, because we lurch almost vertically up unmade roads, sweeping walkers out of our path and cornering sheer drops. And excitement because of the heart-stopping views. The reason for the drama is that we are in Priorat. Rofes’ lofty vineyards, belonging to Priorat’s oldest winery, overlook the gloriously isolated valley.

Priorat was reborn in the 1990s when five winemakers together made international headlines. Rofes remembers: ‘I was 21 when I made my first wine, and in those days I wanted to be a famous winemaker. Priorat was all about René [Barbier], Alvaro [Palacios], Carles Pastrana, Daphne Glorian and Josep Lluís Pérez. Then when I came to Scala Dei, “click!”, I realized the protagonist is not the person, but the place. The weight of tradition, that legacy, can’t be modified by someone who is spending 10 or 20 years there. There have been many people before you, and there will be many after you. The best you can do is to leave it as good or better than you found it.’ He stresses: ‘The wines of Ricard Rofes don’t exist. It’s the wine made by the land and the grapes.’

Rofes has become one of the leaders in Spain’s Garnacha revival, producing some exceptional wines. ‘The irony is that in my first job at Masroig all the wines were based on Cariñena. It’s much warmer in Montsant, and Cariñena has more acidity, tension and a lower pH. I didn’t like Garnacha at all.’