Priorat - Part 5 (monks and ducks)

Our destination today was the famous Scala Dei monastery, founded in the twelfth century. Surrounded by the red cliffs of the Priorat, the setting of the monastery, now in ruins, was breathtaking.

Keeping to the food theme of my blog, we saw how the monks lived their lives in austerity, only receiving their food through a small window in their individual hermitages. Each hermitage was, however, quite large (approximately 1500 square feet), so there was room for a fruit and vegetable garden in the hermitage's central courtyard. All of the harvest, however, was donated to the people in the neighboring town. The monks were vegetarian with one exception. If they fell ill or weak, they were given a soup made from the turtles that resided in a nearby pond.

We then visited a winery, much lauded by Robert Parker, in the village of Scala Dei. La Conreria d'Scala Dei produces four wines: a golden white called Nona (100% garnacha blanca), a red called La Conreria made from younger vines and a red called Iugiter made from vines older than 50 years. There are two levels of the Iugiter, Iugiter (mostly garnacha negra and a little cabernet sauvignon) and Iugiter Selecció (60% garnacha, 30% cabernet and 10% cariñena). At the winery, we sampled cariñena from the barrel that stained our teeth black. Cariñena contributes its deep purple to the Priorat and Montsant wines, while cherry red garnacha negra provides aroma and flavor. This cariñena, from 75-year-old vines, indicates that the 2004 harvest may be as good as the 1998 or 2000, the best of the recent vintages in the Priorat.

Back at the house, we relaxed in the shade of the mulberry tree while our teacher and host, Alicia, gave us a reprieve from our cooking lessons. Our lunch was a shrimp lover's dream -- an endless supply of Mediterranean red shrimp, cooked a la plancha on a bed of rock salt until they were juicy and infused with smoke. On the side we had a salad of tomatoes and spring onions.

Later, for dinner we feasted on Alicia's duck with prunes and porcinis. Catalonia is one of the few regions of Spain that eats duck regularly, and they also are especially fond of foie gras.  The duck legs were braised slowly for several hours in two bottles of La Conreria, with prunes, porcinis and duck prosciutto. We washed this down with a few bottles of Iugiter Selecció, which paired perfectly with the rich duck.