Surmounting the ravages of phylloxera in the late nineteenth century was related with the operation of lead mines in Bellmunt, the earliest records of which go back as far as Roman times. In effect, the town’s vineyards and the Bartolomé i Vernet family were the first in the Priorat region to be replanted with what were known as the “American rootstock grafts” –immune to phylloxera – as early as the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth, due to the municipality’s economic strength, thanks to its mining activity. Today, most of the garnacha and samsó vines planted on the family’s trossos continue to bear the fruits which are used to produce the Primitiu de Bellmunt and Clos Bartolomé red wines.

Starting in 1930, the Garnacha vines which reached the end of their life cycle were replaced with samsó vines, and it was not until the late seventies that vines of native garnacha were planted at the bottom of the valley in the tros of Els Molins, with cabernet sauvignon vines arriving later, in the nineties.