Terra Alta

With its high vineyards and limestone soils, this large Catalonian DO makes distinctive whites from the Garnatxa Blanca grape. Miquel Hudin takes us on a tour of the region and introduces the top producers and wines to look out for.

ONLY A FOOLISH Catalan politician would mention how Catalonia ends at the Ebro river – and only the most foolish among them would say such a thing while standing south of said river. Blustery populism aside, Catalonia does not end at the Ebro; instead it actually rises sharply from it. These distant hinterlands – some 175km inland to the west and a nod to the south from hip, touristic Barcelona – represent a very different side of Catalonia compared to the sunny, selfie-prone beaches that are familiar to most.

This ‘high land’ or terra alta forms the geographic base for DO Terra Alta, where winemaking has been documented since medieval times. However, it’s only in the last decade that the region has resoundingly come of age, making white Grenache (Garnatxa Blanca as it’s known in Catalan, or Garnacha Blanca) its signature grape in the process, while also recuperating ancient red grape varieties such as Morenillo.

Collective history

Wine production in Terra Alta was documented and regulated by the Knights Templar from the 13th century onwards, but phylloxera and the brutal Battle of the Ebro in the Spanish Civil War very nearly wrote the region’s final chapter in viticulture. Sparsely populated, many people left after these bleak times to seek out a better life in the cities. Thus, the village cooperatives were formed to stabilise agricultural work for those who didn’t migrate. With a normalisation of wine production, this in turn eventually led to the formation of the Terra Alta DO in 1972.