Vins Pepe Raventós, Xarel·lo de la Vinya del Noguer Alt

This is the project of my dreams” explains Pepe Raventós, when discussing his eponymous ‘garage’ wines, Vins Pepe Raventós. “They are the kind of wines that talk straight to your soul.”

Separate from his family business, Pepe experiments with micro-vinifications from four plots on the Raventós estate. Each vineyard is under two hectares in size and planted with the old, indigenous varieties Xarel·lo, Malvasia de Sitges and Bastard Negre (Graciano). He aims to produce authentic wines, with a singular purity, using ancestral farming practices and traditional winemaking techniques. Each vineyard is harvested and vinified separately, using a minimal intervention approach to express each site in the most unmediated way possible.

The four estate vineyards Pepe selected are 'Vinya de la Plana' ‘, Vinya del Noguer Alt’, ‘Terrasses del Serral’ and ‘Clos del Serral’. Their soils are calcareous with varying degrees of limestone and clay. Each is farmed biodynamically using Pepe’s own preparations and compost from the family farm. They are farmed with the help of horses wherever possible to reduce impact on the soil.

Produced in tiny quantities, these wines are made with minimal intervention and fermented and aged in different vessels. The Malvasia de Sitges, a variety native to Penedès that is often likened to Riesling, is sourced from the 1.4-hectare `Vinya de la Plana` vineyard. It is fermented in concrete tank and then aged on lees for eight months. The ‘Xarel·lo de la Vinya del Noguer’ is fermented in a combination of barrel, amphora and qvevri. In contrast, the ‘Bastard Negre de les Terrasses del Serral’ is fermented in an open-top barrel. The ‘Mas del Serral’ sparkling wine is made with fruit from the estate’s oldest Xarel·lo vineyard co-planted with Bastard Negre. There is very little clay here, and Pepe explains that “the plant is almost living on the mother rock”, which helps give the wine its fine, distinctive character. It is aged for ten years before disgorgement and displays immense energy, with aromas of orange peel and a trademark saline edge. It is widely regarded as Spain’s most impressive sparkling wine.