Serra & Barcelo 

Want to have a fantastic carpooling experience? Bum a ride with top notch wine makers. My pal Mara Calvo, a Spanish wine exporter, told me that we could share a ride to La Mancha with some people she knew. It seemed like a good idea. So, why not? Soon after I found myself as the happy passenger in a car with Mara, Joan Manel Olivella Ferret and Joan Vendrell Olivella (two fantastic cava producers!). The four of us drove through the picturesque Priorat to the equally beautiful Monsant region where we arrived at the bodega of Josep Serra in the village of Els Guiamets, near Gandesa, Spain. Josep was also coming with us and we somehow decide to take his car. (A decision that had nothing to do with my giant suitcase not fitting in the trunk of the other car! ;) )

A little about Josep:  he likes to drive fast, yell into his speaker phone with funny accents at unsuspecting callers, and blare the music. Oh, and most importantly, he makes wine. Really, really fantastic wine!! Actually, Josep has been making wine since 1994 where he started out as the winemaker for the Falset co-op and later worked for Mas Perinet until 2009.  He was also a consultant for Godelia in el Bierzo and decided to launch his own winemaking start-up. That should be good enough, right?

Josep’s vineyard in Monsant has 2.2 densely planted hectares (5000 vines/hectare) with vines from 1940. It is planted with to 50% Garnacha Fina, 35% Garnacha Peluda, 15% Mazuelo. This is where the grapes used to make his Octonia wine come from. The harvest is by hand and after the grapes are brought back to the bodega they are sorted again, keeping only the best. The juice is left to ferment in French oak barrels for a little over one year where it undergoes a very slow and gentle malolactic fermentation. Malolactic fermentation is a process in winemaking where the naturally occurring (and tart tasting) malic acid is converted into a softer lactic acid. After the fermentation, the wine is aged on its lees (the dead yeast cells and sediment) and bottled. And, yes, the wine is unfiltered.

Josep also has another vineyard near Gandesa, in Terra Alta. Mixed in with almond, olive, peach and cherry trees, Josep grows Garnacha Blanca and a small amount of Macabau for his Aucala white wine, and Garnacha and Carignan for the red Aucala. The land is made up of a calcareous soil and is called Pedra de Cala and is often used to make bricks. There are also some clay pockets and pebbles among the chalk. I even have a drawing that he made diagraming the makeup of the soil layers. All of these important things, from the fruit trees to the soil composition, show up again when you taste the wine.