Praise for Ethos Priorat

It’s her camera – her wide-open, honest, curious, wonder-filled, beauty-searching eye – which cracks this book wide open and spills ready, generous, immediate treasure into the lap of the reader. Hecker pulls in close, finds the tight-knit, fine-grained, invisible veins of her subject. 

But she also glories in colour – splashing the intense shock of it right in your face. She plays with texture: swirling the silk of blonde hair against the linear scruff buff of blue slate; the sharp cut of a torn capsule against the glass-blur curves of a bottle; the orderly horizontal cut of old stone steps built into a raw bruise-blasted, roughly replastered wall; sunrise through pink dust; two old men arguing on a bench.

Hecker is also a talented writer. She has a very particular style: emotional, deeply engaged, one that edges towards poetry, imbued with kindness, uncluttered. Less journalist slash wine writer, more storyteller. Her writing is simple, almost sparse, but it’s lyrical, leaning into her photography for colour and drama, the two media weaving together like a violin–soprano duet.

Despite the physical beauty of the book, and the compelling stories that the photos tell, this is not a coffee-table book. It is detailed, practical, packed with facts from years of research and walking the vineyards and villages. 

Ethos Priorat is, quite frankly, a work of art. Hecker’s years of experience culminate in a book that you want to breathe in, slowly, meditatively, deeply. Her immersion in Priorat saturates every page. It’s a paean to a region without obeisance or cliché. It’s a prayer. It’s timeless.

Ethos Priorat is not only a great book for fans of the wines from this magnetic region of Cataluña, it’s a lot more than that. It’s a love story that chronicles how a sip of wine can sometimes change your life. Elisabeth Hecker was a brand designer for California wineries. She first had a wine from Priorat in 2003 without ever having heard the name of the region before. As it often happens to many of us, she felt the urge to see the place that produced that magical liquid.

Hecker spent 10 years documenting what she saw in Priorat throughout the different seasons, often spending long periods of time in the vineyards on her own, enjoying the silence and the calm. The book is eminently vivid, you get a good sense of what’s it like to be there. But she also consulted with experts in different fields, such as history and geology, not just viticulture or winemaking, talking to old-timers and newcomers, digging into the history of the villages and following the work in the vineyard and in the winery throughout the year. 

Ethos Priorat is a holistic view of the region, covering many different aspects: terroir, climate, nature, the plant cycle, the history of each of the villages, the pioneers and the renaissance. She commissioned detailed maps and recounts the history of how the Carthusian monks developed the region in the 12th century and how it came back to life at full blast through the work of a handful of visionaries that changed the perception of the region forever.

Hecker photographed, wrote and designed a beautiful book, over 300 pages of detail and love for a region that has a special attraction for day dreamers, a place that captures you and doesn’t want you to leave. Listen, the wine is talking…

Elizabeth Hecker’s book is a beautiful and passionate portrait of Priorat and of those who live and work there.  We see with her eyes through her haunting, honest photographs. We hear the voices she has heard, the stories she has been told.  We learn something of the history of this place over the centuries of human habitation, and the millennia during which its stones and slopes came into being. …there is a spirit, an energy, a determination to interact with a place without despoiling it. This is the ‘ethos’ without which grandeur can never endure.

Hecker’s book is anchored by a host of informative passages regarding the region’s geology and geography, the grape varieties it grows, its history, and most saliently its human culture.… Her prose is charming, sometimes earnest, grounded in facts and contexts, and when she’s writing about families, full of love.  The book as a whole is a considerable achievement, not to mention the testament of a grateful heart that has found itself a home in the world.

While Elizabeth Hecker’s stunning, almost brutal full-color photography of this rugged wine region in northwest Spain will draw your eyes in, her words and that of winemakers, viticulturists, and winery owners will leave you longing to visit Priorat and taste its wine. Just miles from Barcelona, Priorat’s isolated slate-covered mountainsides have been home to grapevines for centuries, and Ethos Priorat provides a comprehensive look at the land, people and processes that convert its grapes into some of the finest wine in the world.

The ancient Greeks used the word "ethos" to refer to the special link that people established with a place, which was expressed through their character and way of behaving. We are thrilled that Elizabeth wanted to reflect this thought-provoking concept in our land of Priorat. It is a corner of the world where you can still sense the heartbeat of the ancestral link between people and the vineyards, between the villages and the vine-covered slopes that surround them. It is a book that invites us to feel, to understand and to love, a timeless creation.

Ethos Priorat is a sincere and passionate tribute to this small Catalan wine region, untouched by the passage of time. Elizabeth unveils the secrets of Priorat with such sensitivity and richness of detail, both visually and in writing, that makes this an indispensable book for those who, like me, have been enchanted by the beauty of Priorat or anyone with an interest in wine. This is the story of Priorat told from the inside, by someone who lives here and has fully experienced it, observing nature, meeting the locals, and savouring the wines. Elizabeth’s book shows the life within the wine of Priorat, a region unlike any other in the world, where harmony and nature reign. And this is something that we, as winegrowers, treasure and will continue to preserve and enhance.

You took care creating the book and it shows. It is an expression of the real Priorat.” “From beginning to end I look, think, enjoy with all the senses.” “Ethos Priorat is entertaining, intelligent, informative, respectful. Complete - past, present and future.” “Magnificent. Such a beautiful work.” “… an expression of the terroir, sensitivity to the people, the evolution of nature… we were moved to tears.” “It represents my life. I am so happy.” “Spectacular. The pictures are very beautiful with so many stories.” “I can’t stop reading! It is so easy to read but deep at the same time.” “Ethos Priorat is an encyclopedia of knowledge about the region in one book!!!!” “I think you are the first to explain the story of families like Peyra and Sangenís. No one has done this before and no one will again!” “Splendid pictures, an effort of both content and esthetics.” “The Priorat needed this book: Information in English with facts about the place and its history. The photos really capture the what it feels like to be here making wine.” “The Priorat is very privileged to have a book like this. It is a massive asset for any region.” 

From Priorat fan: “Ethos Priorat achieves gravitas without being heavy or laboured, like the great Priorat wines which engage you in conversation rather than bore you with a monologue.”

Ethos Priorat, a new book by Elizabeth Hecker, is the first detailed resource on the history, terroir, people and wine of the Priorat, a tiny wine region in the mountains south west of Barcelona. In this extract and collection of photographs, Hecker focuses on the crucial season of autumn:

As the nights become cool, the landscape begins to shift from verdant green to a fantastic display of gummy-bear colors. Carinyena turns fiery red and Garnatxa takes on shades of gold, a final burst of energy to tell the world who they are. It is the time of year when nature informs the people which varieties are planted where and that the time for harvest is near. The colors are a result of nature responding to the cooler temperatures, pulling plant energy inward. The decision is, of course, more than just visual. Every vineyard has its moment of readiness and each grower has their own way of choosing what that should be. Read More