Escaladei.

Escaladei is a small village in Catalonia's Priorat wine region, built around the ruins of the Carthusian priory that gave the region its name — Priorat, from the Catalan word for priory. The priory's stone arches and cloister walls still stand against the surrounding hills, abandoned after Spain's dissolution of religious orders. Vineyards climb the steep schist slopes around the village, known locally as llicorella, where old vines produce some of Spain's most respected reds. A handful of wine cellars work from the village itself, several using cellars connected to the site's monastic winemaking past. Narrow lanes and stone houses make up the rest of Escaladei, quiet even in the wine region's busiest months. Priorat's reputation for concentrated, mineral wines rests largely on this terrain: thin soil, sharp inclines, and old plantings that yield small harvests. Escaladei sits at the historical and geographic core of that wine region, where monastery ruins, working cellars, and terraced vineyards share the same small stretch of hillside.