Tarraco´s blessed mountains

The Tarragona province has a number of exceptional mountain ranges such as the massifs of Montsant and els Ports which are natural parks. The Poblet woodland, part of the mountains of Prades, is also a protected area with the status of natural area of national interest.

The Montsant natural park (see top picture) lies in the north of the Priorat comarca and is the natural park closest to those holidaying on the Costa Dorada. The ´Holy Mountain´ (which is what Montsant means literally) has historically been a place of spirituality and transcendence, of hidden-away Romanesque chapels and hermitages and of course also home to the oldest Carthusian monastery - Scala Dei or ´God´s Stairway´ - south of the Pyrenees. Even the Muslims (who occupied this land for centuries) called it the ´blessed mountain´. The whole world knows about the Priorat and Montsant wines, some also know about the beauty of the vine-covered slate hills, but far fewer know about the stunningly imposing blocks of conglomerate rock, chasms, caves, gorges and grottoes of the 9,200 hectares of the Montsant natural park. Like els Ports, the Montsant mountain is difficult to access: no vehicles can get here.

The els Ports natural park is probably one of Spain´s wildest - and least-known - mountains, with its deep rugged ravines and its herds of wild mountain goats (which have barely survived anywhere else). Eagles, vultures and falcons are some of the other animal species seen in els Ports. This is a park of over 35,000 hectares, extending into Aragon and Valencia.

The Poblet woodland, on the northern slopes of the Prades mountains, is about a quarter of the size of the Montsant park. These woods (see picture below) were historically part of the property portfolio of the famous Poblet monastery, Spain´s most important Cistercian monastery. This is a dense, leafy wood at great altitude, a refuge of trees and species unusual for these latitudes so close to the Mediterranean, with lots of wildlife, including the wild boar and the peregrine falcon, and a growing network of hiking and biking trails.

It is said that on a clear day, at the summit of the 1,202 metre-high La Baltasana, one can see the els Ports mountains in the south and the Pyrenees in the north.

To allow us to discover these areas we should give credit to the first generation of hikers who have mapped often long-forgotten footpaths, cart tracks and trails of cattle herders, wood choppers and charcoal makers.

Two Jewish stories from Priorat

600 years after Samuel Cavaller left Falset, one of his descendants, Marcos Caballero, an 80-year old Jewish engineer returns to the city. Samuel Cavaller left Catalonia, as would so many Sephardic Jews in the course of the 15th century; his son, Salomon Cavaller, living in Cervère, France eventually settled in Tessaloniki, Greece; the family later resettled in Smirna, Turkey; and from there the 20th-century descendants of Samuel Cavaller emigrated to Argentina. Marcos Caballero himself moved to Israel in 1952. Obsessed with tracing his genealogical roots, he visited archives across the world during ten years, an expedition which, in 2006, brought him first to Cervère and from there, finally, to the streets of Falset. The Cavellers of Falset, a family of physicians and rabbis, were part of a small, but well-integrated and successful local Jewish community of some 22 families. Many of the Cavaller family did not go into exile but converted to Christianity and their offspring can still be found living in and around Tarragona nowadays.

Only about a 10 minutes´ drive away from Falset is the village of Capçanes where the local cooperative, Celler Capçanes, is one of several winemakers in DO Montsant, Priorat and Tarragona producing kosher wine, in a way reconnecting with a medieval Sephardic tradition in these lands of making kosher wine that sold internationally. It all started in 1991 when the boss of the local co-op was asked by the Jewish community of Barcelona to produce a kosher wine. ´Flor de Primavera´ or ´Peraj Ha’abib´ was the result and Capçanes makes 10,000 bottles a year of it. Kosher wine - increasing in importance since the 1980s - means wine made according to Jewish dietary laws and under strict rabbinical supervision. For wine to be considered religiously pure according to the Jewish rulebook is largely to do with who handles the wine and the ingredients that are used in the winemaking process. In taste, most would say there is no difference at all between kosher and regular wine. Capçanes was the first in Spain to make kosher wine. Now others are following its example.

What is the connection between these two stories? It seems that Tarragona, Catalonia and Spain as a whole is reconnecting with its Jewish past, especially over the last two decades or so. We´re not just talking about the blockbusters like the museification of the Jewish barrio of Girona but at a more general level. The difference lies in little details like the stories of Marcos Caballero and of Capçanes´ kosher winemakers. Genealogy and wine, biography and enology,...and also the genealogy of enology: the part played by Sephardic Jews in this story is one that remains to be written.

Thumbs up from the Wine Advocate

Almost one-quarter of the best Spanish wines in Robert Parker´s world-known ´Wine Advocate´ listing are from DO´s (Denominación de Origen - in English, ´Protected designation of Origin´) located in the Tarragona province: 10 wines from the DO Montsant, 7 DO Priorat and 5 DO Terra Alta. These singular wines have now, after many years, reached the big league of top wines. Only one other Spanish DO - Ribera del Duero, another great Spanish export wine - has more wines on the list of the world´s most influential and ferocious ´wine cop´ than DO Montsant. Montsant, Priorat and Terra Alta wines: small in quantity, great in quality. Here is a promo video for the Montsant wines, its wineries, vineyards, bodegas and winegrowers.