The vintage is already resting

Winegrowers, like all farmers, live in permanent uncertainty. This year this tradition has allowed us to embrace this difficult vintage with love. We took the opportunity to connect with the earth like never before.

We already knew that we wanted the vineyards and the environment that surrounds them to be one: vineyards together in armony with the natural parks of Cap de Creus, Albera and a little further the Aiguamolls de l’Empordà. We knew that the vineyards and the wild life are synergistic and that they protect each other. It’s an idea that doesn’t come out of the blue, but it’s a resulta of 20 years of work. This year we achived the ecological certification of all the vineyards and, although it is only a milestone in the path we are taking, it is quite significant.

This vintage, that we just harvested a few days ago, began a year ago. It was autumn and we had torrential rains that scared us for its virulence. The decision was to prioritize erosion containment as the primary reason for any decision-making in viticulture. The earth, the soils, are the basis of all life, and they must be preserved.

In the winter, Gloria, although it did not affect us much, reaffirmed all the thoughts of autumn and reminded us again that the climate is changing and that we do not want to be party to that.

And when spring was starting to blow its nose, COVID arrived. Then it was time to put into practice all the learnings about the uncertainty we had learned and also those of the generations before us (thank you Grandma Quimeta!). The big challenge was that no one would lose their jobs. Despite not knowing what would happen, the harvest would go ahead. The team became stronger.

And then THE RAIN. Rain and more rain and more rain and more rain. Be careful with your dreams, they might come true. The vineyards had never been such green and full of life. We had time to look at them in a different way: with much more calm and with the feeling that stepping on them heals our souls and removes our fears. The vineyard is grateful and knows that we take care of it like never before and it gives us fruits despite the difficulties and the mildew. We were happy and grateful.

In May, fifteen days of drought changed the landscape. And when summer came, we thought drought was important. The vigor of the vineyards stopped abruptly and the viticultural landscape that had been green until then became earthy. Eventually the fungus stopped and we were able to breathe a little quietly.

Finally, the harvest, one that we will remember: full of senseless scares. We looked compusively at the weather radars that signaled approaching hailstones or torrents but never reached us. Thanks Earth. The wild boar did not respect us so much and we had to harvest some vines earlier to get there before them. The feeling of helplessness is terrible. It has been too difficult to see how the grapes from whole vineyards disappear. We decided to close vineyards and concentrate again.

The vintage has been an endless obstacle course. However, the harvest has been quiet. The cellar has been slowly filling up, a little every day. Now the slowness of the vine is transmitted to the vats. We separate plots and parcels and we thank them for showing us the character of each. We have learned slowness in doing, in thinking. It helps us to be more aware and to better understand the profession and the land that sees us living on. And so we face autumn, looking forward the vintage that is already taking shape.

Anna Espelt Delclós