“Costers” are the essence of the Priorat wine region. They are the region’s oldest vineyards planted on dizzily steep slopes of slate soil. This fantastic, under the radar winery was founded in 2002 by four partners. Jose Mas, a talented Master of Wine student, has been responsible for viticulture and winemaking since the start. They now own ancient plots of vines in eight of the twelve different subregions of Priorat. Their beautiful, atmospheric winery used to be an old monastery.

Priorat is a very old wine region dating back to Roman times, but only came to fame for its high quality red wines in the 1990s thanks to the international success of Alvario Palacios with his highly rated L’Ermita. Unlike most other producers in this very small region who specialise in the Grenache grape, Costers del Priorat focus primarily on growing Carignan (known here as Samso).  On these hot, dry mountain slopes, Carignan grapes never reach more than 14.5% potential alcohol (whilst Grenache can easily achieve 16%) and retain notable freshness and acidity, giving the resulting wines elegance to combine with their power.

Rocafosca Red is a blend of 50% Carignan and 50% Grenache grapes coming from different plots of old vines planted between 1939 to 1970, with northerly exposures to give protection against the fierce summer heat. It is Jose’s belief that if you have perfectly ripe grapes which are carefully sorted, the winemaking looks after itself. The different varietals are fermented using wild yeasts and aged separately in large Slavonian oak casks. Some of the Carignan matures in amphorae to help soften its high tannins. Blending takes place just before bottling.