In the north of the province of Tarragona, the Trepat and Conca de Barberà Wines Route invites us to journey through a land of great natural beauty and vast rural landscapes. Here, in a region of rolling horizons, vineyards have coexisted in harmony with the forests of the Prades mountains since the Middle Ages. This is the undisputed home of the Trepat variety: a red grape almost exclusive to the region, which has revolutionised the wine scene with wines that are the exact opposite of classic full-bodied reds; Trepat is all about finesse, vibrant acidity, lightness of colour and aromas of strawberry and black pepper that seduce you with every sip. Let yourself be seduced and come and enjoy it. Poblet Monastery and the birth of the cooperative movement The winemaking history of Conca de Barberà began in the 12th century, thanks to Cistercian monks. The Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Poblet (a masterpiece of Gothic architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site) is one of the largest and best-preserved medieval monastic complexes in Europe. It was here that the monks taught vine-growing agricultural techniques to the region, a legacy that centuries later, at the end of the 19th century, would be transformed with the birth of the first cooperative winery founded in the Iberian Peninsula, in Barberà de la Conca. This region is home to up to six of Catalonia’s finest “wine cathedrals”, buildings designed by the architect Cèsar Martinell (such as the Barberà cooperatives or the Sarral winery) or by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner (like the winery in L’Espluga de Francolí), where the ornamental elegance of modernism is placed at the service of agricultural work. The region’s monumental legacy is magnificently rounded off with a stroll through the historic walled enclosure of Montblanc, one of the country’s best-preserved medieval walled complexes, where the legend of Saint George lives on in its cobbled streets.