Your Wine Guide to Catalonia Wine Country

This wine guide to the Catalonia wine countrygrapevine plants and how to make wine. Since
discovers a Mediterranean wine region that's nowthen, the wine world is united to Catalonia, its
getting the international recognition it deserves.landscape and history, Mediterranean food and
Passionate winemakers are integrating old andcuisine, economy, culture, and joie de vivre.
new vineyard methods to produce qualityIn his wine guide on how to drink and eat
exclusive wines.properly, unique at the time, the Catalan medieval
Wines from the Catalan wine country arewriter Francesc Eiximenis already told us that
experiencing a breakthrough, especially the"Drinking moderate amounts of wine gives joy to
powerful Priorat wines, which aromas are unlikeman."
any Mediterranean wine you've tasted. OtherThe ancient tradition of Mediterranean wine
appellations like the champagne producing regionbecame well established with Roman rule. Thanks
of Penedès, or Montsant are followingto this stability, the Mediterranean and Catalan
their footsteps.wine universe survived the Nineteenth-Century
Winemakers from the Catalonia wine countrystrike of the phylloxera, which devastated most
display a remarkable creativity and dynamism. IfEuropean vineyards.
necessary, they climb cliff-like vineyards with aThe idea of a wine terroir that now the French,
donkey, or handpick every single grape, but theyand many a wine guide promote aggressively is
always channel their passion for winemaking tonothing other than taking into account every
every bottle of wine.human and natural element that plays a part in
On Majorca, although real state pressure is huge,winemaking.
many mountain wineries refuse to bow to theIn the small Priorat town of Porrera, they have
easy tourism money. They found encouragementalways known that winemaking is a philosophy, a
in the experience of Porrera, a Catalanholistic process that was absent from most wine
winemaking village, and have become key playersguides until recently. The town's orography is so
in the revaluation of wines of Majorca.complicated that if they didn't have a philosophical
As Màrius Fuertes i Mateu, a Catalanconcept of wine, they would probably be doing
enologist, says:something else, anything else.
Wine, like cuisine, and everything that arises fromA quality bottle of wine is an integral part of a
the heart of nature [...] wants people with awhole wine universe pervading numerous
religious calling.Mediterranean towns and wine countries, and
The use of endangered traditional grape varietiesembellishing their landscape with beautiful
in the new quality Majorcan wines is exciting. Theyvineyards. You can't understand wine if you isolate
also work in the recovery of the malvasia ofit from its human and natural milieu.
Banyalbufar. For centuries, this Majorcan grapeThe philosophy of wine is noticeable in the whole
variety produced an appreciated dessert wineWestern Mediterranean region. Wheat, oil and wine
that everyone misses dearly.have nourished the Mediterranean peoples for
My childhood is full of memories of mymany centuries. That essential triad gave birth to
grandmother sitting with some friends, delicatelya specific Mediterranean culture and shaped a
holding a glass of muscat, malvasia, or ratafia, alifestyle unmistakably Mediterranean.
sweet wine you make at home with herbs andGreen vineyards by the sea,green at first lightsoft
green walnuts on the waning moon of the monthgreen toward nightfall...
of May. After being forgotten for years, CatalanAlways keep us company,
quality dessert wines are beginning to get theirGreen vineyards by the sea!
due.So sings a major Catalan poet, Josep M. de
Wine country, terroir, holistic wine makingSagarra, in the final stanza of a poem that
Twenty-four centuries ago Greeks from Asiamasterfully evokes the beauty of the Catalan
Minor taught us how to domesticate wildvineyards by the Mediterranean sea.