Els Escurçons is the highest licorella terroir in el Priorat, almost on the top of a hill. It is oriented towards the south-west. The views over the Ebro river valley, el Montsant mountain and the whole Priorat is breathtaking.

Els Escurçons terroir is taken care of by the people at Mas Martinet. They make one of their most prestigious wines there. They bring many of their guests to visit this place, so they can explain in situ the first part of this wine making process.  Currently they have a table and four chairs to host their guests. In the extreme Priorat climate, it is often too hot or too cold, windy or rainy, to taste this wine in the best conditions possible -with no noise. So they have asked us to build a shelter where they can welcome everyone and explain and taste their wine.

The site is quite isolated, with a narrow dirt path as the only way to get there. The vineyard seasonal cycle produces many waste materials. The place is made of stone, air and vines. We will use all these materials to build the conditions needed. We won’t buy (almost) anything.

This first plan was born during a one day visit to the vineyard. Soon we’ll come back and design and build a plan, together, on site. Meanwhile, from the other side of the world, we developed an easy open construction system that can easily adapt to that vineyard’s conditions. Once the main principles are set, it can transform and adapt to changing needs and conditions.

How can Albert Howard‘s ideas help us inhabit this rough land? We’ll transform three environments: one for winter, one for summer, and one for spring and autumn. They all relate to specific preexistences in this terroir, which carry in them the potential to easily become great places to enjoy wine in these very different seasons.

Weeds grow and reproduce spontaneously, adapted to the particular conditions of this environment. No chemical product is used in this terroir. There is a fragile balance between weeds and vines. We are developing a materialization method for these shelters that is close to how this terroir works: human presence here is about helping it to grow autonomous. We will build this together.

While the project is on hold, vines keep growing -they keep preparing the shelters to come.