This past Saturday was the Tasta Porrera event in, yes you’ve guessed it, the small village of Porrera in Priorat, Catalonia. It was put on by the very sensibly named, Association of the wineries of Porrera.
It shouldn’t come as a shock to see this event come up as tastings of the newest wine releases in the Fall just after the harvest is finished are quite common. In fact, it’s a bit dizzying as they pretty much all happen at the same time and have taken on a similar tone in recent years wherein you show up, buy a book of tickets that are supposed to each be for a taste when in fact it often takes several tickets to taste the “premium” wines.
To some extent, we had really quite soured to these types of events as they’re generally packed with people just looking to kill time and get drunk, the ticket business is annoying, and the prices of the wines are usually higher at the events than you’d find in the cellars or shops. To our surprise and pleasure, Tasta Porrera completely bucked this trend. Okay, it got crowded as the day went on, but amazingly the only wines that required more than one ticket were a handful of truly premium wines and everything that they were pouring was available to buy at a discount of 20-25%. Who would have thought it possible?
So in the end, it was a delightful event that allowed us the chance to meet and talk directly to the last wineries of Porrera that we needed to include in our upcoming Priorat guide, as well as randomly meet other like-minded wine lovers such as the Envinats group from Girona. In addition to the local wineries though, they also invited two from the island of Mallorca that are located in the sister town to Porrera named appropriately, Porreres. Also, there were some wickedly delicious dishes being served up by the local restaurants like the tuita amb suc (pictured below) which is the “juicy” Priorat omelet that’s six different ways of delicious.
So, delicious food, wonderful wine, and even good weather for the day. Were we happy enotourists? Oh yeah, more please!
