Camp de Tarragona: two thousand years exporting wine
From Tarraco, Roman capital of Hispania, ships loaded with wine amphorae sailed out to the whole Empire. Today, amid cooperative cathedrals and old vines, the area is trying to recover what it lost.
From Tarraco to the DO Tarragona
From the 1st century AD, ships loaded with wine amphorae sailed from Tarraco — political capital of a large province of Hispania and a first-rate trading port — to Rome, Gaul, Germania or Britannia, with the geographical origin already stated on the exports, as 1st-century Latin authors record. The current DO Tarragona has two distinct zones: the Camp de Tarragona — with the regions of the Alt Camp, the Baix Camp and the Tarragonès — and the Ribera d'Ebrearea, between the Ebro river and the Mediterranean. The Camp's soils are mostly Miocene, calcareous and light; the Ribera's are Tertiary and stony.
The Conca de Barberà: legends, monasteries and cooperatives
Right next door, the Conca de Barberà — a different region, with its own DO — lies inland from the Costa Daurada, marked by the Cistercian Route monasteries such as Poblet and the medieval town of Montblanc, the regional capital. In Sarral, considered the wine and craft heart of the area, there's an impressive winery built in 1914 by Pere Domènech i Roura. In Rocafort de Queralt, the modernist cooperative by César Martinell — a disciple of Gaudí — is known as 'the cathedral of wine'. And in Barberà de la Conca, which gives the region its name, Spain's very first cooperative winery was opened.
The cooperatives saved many old vineyards, but from the 1970s they also became a double-edged sword: factories that paid little for grapes and chased kilos over quality. That's why more and more producers are reclaiming the old vines hidden beneath this sea of industrial production.
Why we're not there yet
Neither the Camp de Tarragona nor the Conca de Barberà are part of the Terroir Radical catalogue yet — our gateway into the area is, for now, the neighbouring Alt Camp, with Celler Sanromà and La Rural. But the old vines being reclaimed here, especially in the Conca de Barberà, are exactly the kind of heritage we're interested in. We'll keep a close eye on whoever manages to rescue them.
From Tarraco, a first-rate Roman port, to the whole Empire.
Monasteries and modernist cooperative 'cathedrals' by César Martinell.
The reclaiming of old plots against decades of industrial production.
A territory in exploration
We don't have wines of our own from the Camp de Tarragona or the Conca de Barberà yet, but we already have a foot in the neighbouring Alt Camp. Discover it while we keep exploring the area.
See the Alt Camp See the whole territory