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As one can imagine from these circumstances, the geological conditions here are extremely varied. The vineyards range from 50 to around 700 metres above sea level; the soils of the 16 municipalities are dominated by limestone, granite or slate, depending on the location, but they also keep changing within the zones.
The climate here is subject to both maritime and continental influences. The Mediterranean is not far away, but the warm sea winds are significantly weakened by the mountains, which leads to much higher temperature fluctuations between day and night than one would expect in this region. In general, winters here tend to be cool and summers hot and dry, but microclimatic influences are also predictably large.
As varied as the conditions are, as varied are the wines, one might think, but it is not quite that simple. Basically, we are dealing here mainly with strong, dark red wines (the whites can be very good, but play a clearly subordinate role) with ripe, mostly rather warm fruit, fullness, a lot of spice and high to very high alcohol. The differences lie in the details. The best wines are deep and multi-layered and retain surprising coolness, polish and finesse even at high alcohol levels of up to 15% and more, while simpler examples can turn out somewhat rustic and sometimes exhausting even at 14% (it is almost never much less with the reds).
By far the most important varieties in Montsant are Garnacha Tinta and Cariñena, but Tempranillo, Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are also semi-prominent. Among the whites, Garnacha Blanca and Macabeo together occupy almost 90% of the vineyard area.
As with all tastings of wines of this calibre, we had to take our time because most of the wines only revealed what they were really capable of - or not - with air. 39 red and one white sample were presented to us, which we tasted over 4 days. Due to the manageable quantity, we can exceptionally present all the wines here and here. in PDF present them. Links to all wines and producers with detailed descriptions and further information can be found at here.