Originally published in Avina Wine Tools

Number 16 is just a house. It sits at the end of a paved street, just across from a patch of gnarled vines, the only hint that I’ve arrived at a vineyard. In fact, I’ve toured the two-street town twice already searching for it. I’m here for the tour of Foresta, a small winery tucked away in the tiny village of L’Arboçar, which sits deep in the heart of Catalunya’s wine-making region, D.O. Penedès, midway between the mountains and the sea. Like the town it sits in, it’s a micro-operation indeed. A few French oak barrels and two small steel fermentation tanks are housed in the garage, and there’s a small artichoke patch around back. It’s not what you’d expect of a vineyard, but in a region of small production, family-owned vineyards, it’s not unusual either.

There’s just three of us out in the fields braving the chilly weather today: wine making partners Joan Olivella and Lluís Carsí and me. They’re taking me to the top of their steeply terraced vineyard to admire the view, but also so we can talk about the weather. It’s important here, especially in this zone dotted with microclimates. We pile into their dusty work truck and launch off the residential street onto a narrow path of pale orange clay, up and away from the tiny pastel town. We bump along blowing up dust all around us, shocks creaking, snaking up the rock-strewn dirt road past small plots of still-bare vines. Along the way, we pass a mountain biker pedaling steadily upwards, braving the uneven ground.

It’s not yet spring, a fact signaled by the blustery wind from the Mediterranean Sea that whips around us as we hike the narrow ridge that runs above the vineyard. The vines are bare, with nothing to show but shaggy bark and the carpet of white flowers that bloom around their base each spring. Nevertheless there’s a silent process at work, and soon the vines will sprout tender buttons of bright green leaves, soon to unfurl in the warming weather. Today is not a normal day, they tell me. Normally the breeze that blows rolls across the terraced hills is warm and humid, bringing steady relief to the vines from the baking heat of summer days. To the west spreads the low, flat land of Penedès, where the vineyards are divided into neat quadrants, soaking up the warm Spanish sun. To the east is the sea, and before it the land of the Massís del Garraf, a tiny zone of microclimates and terraced land which slopes gently toward the water.

Lluís is searching for a rock to show me, a fossil actually, one that has the age-old record of marine life inscribed upon it. They are common in this area, where the sandy, clay-like soil is mostly composed of limestone, which forms an integral part of the wine’s terroir. It’s what distinguishes it from, say, the wines of Priorat where the shale-heavy soil is marked by a different sort of minerality. The soil in Penedès is just one of the elements which helps to make it one of the best wine-producing regions in Spain after Rioja.

The hilltop is covered in rugged shrubs of wild rosemary and thyme dotted with pale purple blooms. Its fragrance reaches up each time our legs brush against it as we make our way carefully along the narrow, rocky path. When we reach the end, we are greeted by two low cement posts that will form the base of the table they’re building. Soon, they tell me, guests will be able to sit here and taste their wines while taking in the stellar views. It’s a seductive one to be sure, with the Mediterranean shimmering in the distance, and the patchwork of vines lacing the countryside that meets it.

Yet what we might appreciate as a serene, softly rolling landscape, they view as labor, each narrow terrace a careful negotiation of manual labor and careful footwork by family members and hired workers. From vine to bottle, the wine production demands a complex calculation involving orientation, sun exposure, moisture, and physical collection. It’s one that Joan was taught by his father and his father before him. It’s one he’s learned by trial and error. It’s not a perfect science, but it’s his and somehow that’s enough.

Despite its challenges, they love this land they work. They love its thick green forests, which inspired their name, because they protect their organic vines from potential contamination from other vineyards. They also love the fauna that inhabits them, like the wily little fox, a common sight in the Garraf, that dances across their label. They don’t love the wild boars quite as much– javelís in local parlance–which are far less fleet-footed and far more destructive to the vines. One ate his way through almost 15,000 grapes from a neighbor’s vines in one night. They’re now kept out by an electric fence.

Together they make only three wines, one white and two reds, although a dessert wine, a Viognier, is on the horizon. Their wines are carefully crafted from mostly local varietals, each a labor of love. Foresta’s wines are made almost exclusively from local grapes, Xarello (the x is pronounced softly like a ‘sh’), Sumoll, and Marselan (a cross between Grenache and Cabernet Sauvignon), a relatively new grape that only arrived in Catalunya from coastal France in 1990. It’s admired for being disease resistant, but its small fruit and low yield make it a challenge to work with.

Xarello, a white grape used in cava, makes an aromatic white. Although their Xarello has a bit of Viognier thrown in, it’s still a monovarietal wine. Yet, monovarietals aren’t necessarily simplistic. To create maximum expression, they harvest the Xarello grapes from three different parcels with different orientations and soil compositions in order to create a more interesting “blend,” even though they’re all the same grape. Foresta’s is lemon-like and heady with the scent of lime blossoms. You can taste a mineral kiss of limestone, but mostly you can taste the salt of the sea.

Their Sumoll has a subtle floral aroma of violets and rose petals on the nose but the body is light like a Pinot Noir. In this one, too, the minerality of the soil comes through. Sumoll comes from a slang term in Catalan, sumollar, which refers to the maturing, literally withering, that takes place when grapes become raisins. It’s a grape native to Catalunya but one that isn’t widely planted. It’s also a grape that takes time and energy to do right. The long, big fruit needs a highly skilled winemaker to bring forth its best qualities. Paired with low yields, it’s a grape that most winemakers don’t take the time to invest in. Indeed, Foresta is one of the few wineries that’s helping to bring this grape back into view.

Unlike large production wineries with wide distribution, they don’t make much money, but it’s enough to get by. Eventually, they hope to buy more land so that they can expand production and new equipment to help them harvest faster and more efficiently. In the meantime, they’re thinking of new ways they can share their love of the land with guests. They’ve converted three old stone huts on the property, originally used by field workers to protect them from storms, into sweetly decorated single room eco-huts where guests can stay in a private patch of land in the middle of the vineyard. They’re beautifully rustic little spaces, covered with a profusion of wild irises for drainage, which open up to incredible views of the vines and forest, offering just what one would need to disconnect and relax.

When we finally arrive back in the garage, Lluís shows me their modest setup: the couple small stainless steel fermenting tanks and six small oak barrels. A shelf on the wall holds a few bottles of their latest wines. He opens a Xarello from 2015 so I can taste it, while I press him about what motivates him to make wine. The work is hard, the challenges sometimes daunting, he tells me, but the joy is simple. What makes him most happy, he says, is seeing his guests enjoy what they drink. Just that.

To schedule a visit: Vins de Foresta
Website: http://www.vinsdeforesta.cat/
Phone: +619 00 88 38

Originally published in Metropolitan

It’s rare that a salad achieves such culinary status, but the xató is a special salad indeed. It arrives each winter to a fanfare of festivals, competitions and more than a little local rivalry. This much-feted dish is made from escarole, a variety of lettuce that’s traditionally available only in winter, and other ingredients that were, historically at least, only readily available in the colder months, when fresh ingredients were harder to come by. The salsa is made from store cupboard ingredients like dried peppers, cookies and bread, while the three fish used are salt cod, anchovies and tuna, which are available year-round, dried or canned.

That the salad is named for the salsa, or vice versa depending on one’s perspective, shouldn’t detract from the importance of the escarole, which singer and food writer Pere Tàpias once referred to as the “queen of the kitchen in winter”. Escarole is rich in vitamins A and K, folate, fiber, iron, magnesium and calcium, making it ideal for a winter salad, when fresh vegetables are harder to come by. Escarole, like endive and radicchio, comes from the chicory family but is less bitter than its peers. It comes in two varietals, broad-leaved and curly (known in Catalan as fulla llisa and fulla arrissada), the second being finer and more highly valued in gastronomic circles. One kind in particular, called angel’s hair (cabell d’angel), and known in the Garraf by the name of la perruqueta, is often chosen for its sweet flavor. In fact, the outer, greener leaves of the head are often peeled away and discarded for being too bitter, leaving only the sweeter, creamy white leaves closer to the heart. However, the inner and outer leaves can be mixed to taste. 

The exact provenance of xató is unknown, but its origins lie in the Penedès, the coastal wine-making region between Barcelona and Tarragona. Here, five towns make up a loosely defined Xató region: Sitges, Calafell, El Vendrell, Vilafranca del Penedès and Vilanova i la Geltrú. These towns work together to maintain the dish’s tradition and status, and promote it through the region and beyond. A xató route and accompanying website, raise the salad’s visibility and celebrate the culture, gastronomy and local traditions of each town, and the region as a whole. Six festivals dedicated to xató take place during the winter months in the five xató towns.

In 2015, the first annual masterclass for journalists was inaugurated, celebrating the salad and the regional nuances of its dressing. In this friendly competition, each town is represented by a local chef who teaches journalists how to make their specific version of the sauce. At the end, the sauces are tasted and the best is awarded a prize. In addition, the organization, under the name of Ruta del Xató, has created a network of restaurants in the area that serve the traditional xató salad or a tapa inspired by the dish, often accompanied by xató dressing.  

The salad’s status is also promoted by famous chefs who serve two-year stints as its ambassadors, a tradition that began in 1988 with Ferran Adrià and continues today with Moments chef Raúl Balam Ruscalleda, son of the well-known chef Carme Ruscalleda, the owner of Restaurant Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mar.

Originally published in BCNMes.

Walking through Finca Parera, we stop by a small garden, which looks more like a jumble of weeds. Rubén Parera bends down and plucks out a stalk of celery, a handful of parsley, a few blades of swiss chard, and some comely escarole. Each time he yanks out a handful, he holds it up like a prize winner at a state fair and grins.

At Finca Parera, an organic and biodynamic winery in the Alt Penedès, they do much more than just make wine. With three generations of farmers in the family, it’s not surprising to see more than just vines being cultivated.

Some of his neighbors don’t understand his “dirty” farming techniques.

Rubén works the land with his father and two other partners. Under his father’s hand, the land was once used to farm cherries and plums, but Rubén’s vision was to turn it into a vineyard. Today, some of the cherries remain alongside almond and olive trees –essential to biodynamic, polyculture agriculture– but most of the landscape is laced with vines. From these they produce a lineup of nine sparkling and still minimal-intervention wines.

Rubén pops open a metal door in the ground and reveals a bunker of cloudy, ancestral whites. He holds one up to the sun and admires the yeast deposits. It’s made of Xarel·lo, one of several local grapes they grow. When they used to sell their grapes to large producers like Torres, they cultivated many international varietals. Now they’re finding their roots –shifting production to native varietals, foregoing Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot for Monastrell, Sumoll, and other locals that best express the terroir of the region.

As we walk along rows, Rubén points out a small patch of tufted greens, different from the usual ground cover. They’re habas, he tells us –fava beans– planted to bring nitrogen to the soil. Most of them end up in the menus of Barcelona restaurants Dos Palillos and Dos Pebrots. Although some of his neighbors don’t understand his “dirty” farming techniques, Ruben’s proud of his wild ground cover, patting it lovingly before heading off to check on his new bees. A winemaker’s curiosity can never be satisfied, he says.

What to try: Clar (€7.50) is a crisp, aromatic unaged white made from Xarello, Chardonnay, and Gewurtraminer filled with fruit and a hint of flowers. The Fins Als Kullons (€15) is a blend of Xarel·lo, Garnatxa Blanca, Sumoll. It’s a light, juicy red with the soul of a white, perfect for summer drinking.

Where to find it: Bar Salvatge (Verdi, 67), La Festival (Verdi, 50), Mano Rota (Creu dels Molers, 4).

Originally published in BCNMés.

It’s the tail end of the harvest season, and the small laboratory at Parés Baltà is abuzz. The family is in there – the whole family – testing the season’s spoils. We crowd in at the window to watch them, a strange universe where humans observe humans at work. They hover over microscopes, dip pipettes, hold beakers up to the light.

Out in the vineyard, the vines are nearly stripped of their grapes. Some of the leaves have already begun their synthesis, turning deep red and brilliant yellow before the vines finally molt. Soon, the sheep will move in to ‘green clean’ the vines of extra leaves and prepare the soil with their natural fertilizer. All organic and biodynamic, the vineyard requires a lot of energy, human, ovine and moon alike.

Back in the barrel room, we’re taught to paddle the wines, dipping our oars into empty oak like lost Vikings, imagining the juicy macerations of peels on fruit. We’re happy to show we’re willing to work for our just rewards.

Parés Baltà is a family-run winery that crosses three generations, but the women are clearly in charge. Sisters-in-law Marta Casas and Maria Elena Jiménez are the enologists at the helm, and there’s little the dynamic duo can’t do. Together they’ve created a catalogue of 28 wines and collected a pile of medals to show for it. They name them after grandmothers, mothers, and daughters – Elena, Irene, Carol, Blanca, Rosa, Marta. Their belief in Mother Earth guides them.

“You could say our wines have a feminine touch,” our tour guide tells us. Well, imagine that.

What to try: The Blanca Cusiné 2010 (€17.50) will surprise you with a golden color that hints at its grace. It’s an incredibly high quality and well-priced brut cava made of a unique combination of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Xarel·lo and aged for 30 months. It serves up a tumbled bouquet of honey and hazelnuts, with hints of fresh prickly pear and preserved fruit that ends in a long, complex finish. Their Radix Rosé (€17) is another palate pleaser, an intensely deep-red Syrah rosé that explodes in full aromas of blackberries, cherries, plums, and strawberries. It has a balanced acidity and a soft finish that goes down easy.

Where to find it: Celler Can Dani (c/ Travessera de Gràcia, 119), Celler Florida (c/Floridablanca, 112), and Bodega Bonavista (c/Bonavista, 10)

Originally published at BCNMés.

He grabs my arm and holds it tight. It’s a firm grip for an old man, surprising given his small stature. The grandfather of cava, Agustí Torelló Mata, looks up at me, eyes twinkling, ready to divulge all the secrets of his prestigious bubbly. But first, a tour is in order.

It’s full verema (harvest) in el Penedès, and there’s plenty of action happening on the grounds of Agustí Torelló Mata, one of the region’s most prominent producers. The bottling machine is going at full tilt, a shuddering cacophony that shakes the underside of my skin. We peer down into the lethal looking press, a massive metal corkscrew tangled with the juicy remnants of its last round with the Xarello. Men move about, checking gauges, tasting most. I’m given a pull from one of the large fermentation tanks so I too can sip on the percolating juice. It’s grapey and floral and pure. The first tastes bode very well for the harvest, they tell me.

I’ve come to investigate the Kripta, which caught my eye for its unusual, ovoid shape. Its bottle sports the rounded base of an old Roman amphora, a tribute to times past, though not ones we can remember. Nevertheless, there’s something nostalgic about it. The bottle is an elegant expression of the delicate, aged cava inside.

We descend into the cellar for a break from the noise. It’s quiet down here, a zen pocket far from the hustle upstairs. There’s jazz piping through the room, blasting through the bubbles quietly percolating in the dim light. I like to imagine them dancing.

What to try: If you’re splurging try the Kripta Gran Reserva 2008 (€53), if for no other reason than being served a bottle with its very own stand. The Reserva Barrica 2010 (€21) offers a similar taste, though, without breaking the bank. It has an elegant creaminess with flavors of cooked apple, notes of toasted vanilla and brioche, and subtle balsamics that reveal its complexity and balance. For a fresher option, try the Brut Nature Gran Reserva 2011 (€14). It’s clean and fruity, with notes of apple and caramel against a backdrop of fresh herbs and minty balsamic.

Where to find it in Barcelona:
El Petit Celler • Carrer de Beethoven, 8, Sarrià
Vila Viniteca • Carrer dels Agullers, 7, El Born
Quimet & Quimet • Carrer del Poeta Cabanyes, 25, Poble Sec

Originally published in BCNMés

“We also make wine for ourselves that we stomp with our own feet. Want to try it?” Nervous laughter and then a resounding silence emanates from the group. It soon becomes clear that ‘no’ was never an option.

Josep Mitjans is walking full steam ahead toward a corner of the Loxarel warehouse. He invites us up into the refrigerated truck carefully, one by one. “Cuidado. The floor is all ice,” he says. Like a gentleman, he grabs my hand and helps me up attentively. The air is freezing inside, a shock after the warm hive of the warehouse. In the corner is a knee-high stainless steel vat, some plastic tubing, and a pipette. He hands us each a glass, draws a small amount of liquid out, and shoots it into our glasses. The color is vivid and pleasing, like the meat of a pale plum. It petals the nose with a waft of rose. Our trepidation falls away with the first sip. It’s juicy and drinkable, and we laugh and forget for a moment where we are.

Loxarel’s tours are all about small surprises. One moment you’re touching dusty cellar walls that once offered shelter from bombs, the next you’ve popped out into a sunny vineyard via a tiny door that makes you wonder if you’ve fallen down some sort of rabbit hole. Or up it, as the case may be. The two donkeys, ever playful, are also a delight.

It’s surprising to find 31 still wines and cavas on the catalogue of a small producer. Yet, from the passion Josep exudes, it’s not hard to understand why. His organic and biodynamic practices reveal a great deal about the focus and energy he puts into his wines. Tasting their pure brilliance reveals the rest.

What to try: If I could, I would encourage everyone to grab a bottle of the impressive 720 Pecats (“Sins”), but it’s not out yet. For now, tuck into a bottle of the amphora-fermented À Pel, from his natural wines collection, a dark, intense beauty with a nose full of black cherries, dried fruits, hazelnuts, and almonds (11,55€) . His EOS Syrah with swirling aromas of licorice, coffee, cacao, cherries, violets, and Mediterranean herbs captivates equally (10,50€).

Where to find it: Nomm (Avinguda del Paraŀlel, 130), Pollería Fontana (Carrer de Sant Lluís, 9), Álava de la Cruz (c/Corsega, 544)