ic May, 1909.] Catalmia. 319 



\ears ago. The vine industry in these parts suffered most severely from 

 phylloxera which, on these dry hillsides, proved very deadly and where, as 

 at Malaga, early reconstitution failures owing to the use of the Riparia 

 stock deterred many from replanting. Falset, a large village near the 

 Marsa-Falset railway station may be looked upon as the centre of the dis- 

 trict, which is roughly a valley running E.X.E. from Mora la Nueva, be- 

 tween the Montes de Garrancha and the Sierra de Prades on the flanks of 

 which the best vineyards are situated. The Ciurana, a small tributary of 

 the Ebro, runs through the valley. After passing the stations of Pradell 

 and Torre de Fontaiibella, a tunnel through the Sierra de Prades range, 

 takes one out of the Priorato proper, wuth its pizarra formations, into lime- 

 stone soils where the wines produced are of quite a different type to the 

 Priorato Rancios. 



Shortly after passing this tunnel Reus is reached, a town of 27,000 in- 

 habitants, which was formerly the headquarters of the old Priorato wine 

 trade and still is the commercial centre of the more recent trade in these 

 wines, which are largely shipped to England under the newer name of 

 Tarragona Port. As has happened in Portugal, the name of the port of 

 shipment has displaced that of the district where the wine is grown. 



Falset and the adjoining villages Cornudella, Poboleda, and Porrera 

 produce the choicest Rancio wines. Next to these, so far as quality is 

 concerned, some Gratallops, Masroig, Guiamets, Marsa, and Capsanes 

 where the land is a little less .steep and rocky. 



The district w^as divided in old days into Priorato Alto and Priorato 

 Bajo (upper and lower); all the above villages are situated in the former 

 division. Here the Garnacho was the variety exclusively cultivated ; a 

 Rancio wine was wanted, and this variety produced it in a more pro- 

 nounced form than an\ other in these typical pizarro soils. 



Priorato Bajo consisted of the lower portions in the valley where the 

 soil is alluvial and often calcareous. Here. Rancio wines are not produced ; 

 other varieties, especially Ca.rinefia (Carignane), are grown as well as Gar- 

 nacho, yielding wine of more usual type. 



The upper division, owing to its special nature, is the one presenting 

 the most interesting features. In many parts there is practically no soil ; 

 the vines are grown in the much fissured, slaty, schist in the same way as in 

 the Alto Douro district of Portugal. In pre-phylloxera days, when un- 

 grafted vines could be used, these were planted by sinking a hole in the 

 easily broken rock with a crow-bar. In the most arid situation, where the 

 best wines were grown, this hole was filled with a couple of baskets of soil 

 in which the young \ine could find some nourishment until such time as its 

 roots had established themselves in crevices in the rock. It was estimated 

 that it cost I pe.seta per vine to plant a vineyard. With about 1,000 vines 

 per acre the cost of establishment would come to about ^40 per acre, even 

 with the cheap labour available. Such conditions are not at all suited for 

 resi-stant stocks, and one can easily understand the unsatisfactory results 

 obtained when their u.se was attempted in the same manner as with the 

 ungrafted vinifera, especially with so exacting a stock as regards moisture 

 and richness of soil as the Riparia. 



There is a marked difference between the district before and after 

 phylloxera. The tendency has been to replant the richer soils rather than 

 the dry slatv hillsides. Thus it is that the bulk of the trade is now in 

 cheap Tarragona ports, probably blends containing onlv a proportion of 

 Rancio wine from pizarra soils, such as gave the district its ancient repu- 

 tation. 



