Why it matters
The producer
In Porrera, a village in the Priorat hills of southern Catalonia, there is an old stone building that once distilled spirits under a family name. Jonàs Macip Simó is the family's current generation. In 2018 he opened a winery inside that building, using the name Giol, his great-grandfather's surname.
The winery is small by any measure: 11 hectares of terraced mountain vineyards, approximately 4,000 bottles a year, and a range built entirely on Garnatxa Negra and Carinyena, the two autochthonous red varieties that Priorat's licorella slate suits best. Macip Simó is a viticulturist by training, and Giol Porrera is conceived as a farming project before a commercial one. The bottles exist to sustain the land and the agrarian tradition it represents, not to expand.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Priorat sits inland from the Catalan coast in the Tarragona province, in a landscape of steep ridges and narrow valleys carved by the Siurana river and its tributaries. The terrain forces viticulture onto terraced slopes, and the soils are licorella, a Catalan term for the dark, fractured slate and quartz schist that defines this hill country. Licorella drains fast, holds heat, and offers vines almost no organic matter to draw from. Roots push deep into the fractured rock to find water. Fruit is concentrated by stress rather than by warmth alone.
The combination of altitude, terraced exposure, and licorella soils favours Garnatxa Negra and Carinyena over the international varieties that entered the appellation in the 1990s. Both grapes have deep roots in these slopes and tolerate the stress of thin, rocky soils without losing concentration.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The 11 hectares across Mas d'en Caçador and Les Sentius are farmed as terraced mountain vineyards, the traditional form for this landscape. Terraces allow mechanisation to reach certain parcels while protecting the slope from erosion; others require hand work entirely. The licorella soils and the DOQ Priorat vine density requirements mean that yields per hectare are low, which concentrates the fruit character in each cluster.
Garnatxa Negra, the local name for Grenache Noir, is a warm-climate variety that on licorella produces wines with body and ripe red fruit but with lower colour extraction than Carinyena. Carinyena, Carignan, provides the darker pigment, firmer tannins, and the high natural acidity that keeps Priorat wines fresh and supports ageing. Blended, the two varieties balance each other: the weight and fruit of Garnatxa Negra with the acidity and grip of Carinyena.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range at Giol Porrera is built from two grape varieties across two parcels. The confirmed wines are the Garnatxa Negra i Carinyena blend, available across multiple vintages from 2018 onward, and a wine labelled as autochthonous variety from the 2020 vintage. Total production across both wines is approximately 4,000 bottles a year.
The Garnatxa Negra i Carinyena blend is the core wine. It carries the mineral character of licorella in the mid-palate and on the finish, with the ripe red fruit from Garnatxa Negra balanced by Carinyena's firmer tannins and natural acidity. The 2022 vintage shows bright acidity that keeps the wine vibrant despite the ripeness of the fruit, with tannins that are present without hardness and a finish that runs earthy and long. The autochthonous variety wine from 2020 falls within the same grape and appellation framework, though no detailed tasting notes are available from confirmed sources.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
The Garnatxa Negra i Carinyena blend is the right first bottle. It is the wine Jonàs Macip Simó has produced across the most vintages, and it is the one with confirmed tasting character. Choose the most recent available vintage.