Sippin' on Private Stock — Vinyes Tortuga and the New Wave of Catalonian Natural Wine
It’s a peaceful day in the Alt Empordà countryside of Catalonia. Or at least it would be, were it not for The Notorious B.I.G. blasting from the record player.
It’s the soundtrack to the Vinyes Tortuga harvest, and they’re mid-way through pressing the grapes from the days picking when I arrive. There’s barely time for introductions before the next bin [a large bucket for collecting the harvested grapes] is pummelled by the crusher-destemmer. They’re a cool couple: Jurriaan Morsink, 31, with his red bandana keeping blonde ringlets in check, Dido Voorma, 29, with her denim dungarees and chunky work boots. They’re both covered in grape skins and their hands stained purple.
Photography by Lucy Lovell
Most of the grapes were picked yesterday, and Jurriaan and Dido work relentlessly to press them; this is the culmination of a year’s farming. I put my dictaphone away and pitch in.
“Here’s something you might not know,” Dido shouts over the music. “All our wines are named after songs.”
I had recently tried one of their strawberry-hued pét-nats [otherwise known as "pétillant-natural”, a traditional style of sparkling wine whereby the fermentation is finished in the bottle, producing carbonation] called Juicy. I assumed the name came from its fruity flavour or the fact that it goes down as easily as juice does.
“That’s named after The Notorious B.I.G, a song called ‘Juicy’—it’s our favourite,” says Dido. “I love his albums. There [are] actually hidden lyrics on the back of the label.”
The grapes we’re pressing today will be used in the latest iteration of Juicy. Previous incarnations have been light, fresh and with a low alcohol content of around 12%. Juicy version 3.0 is set to be a mix of Garnacha [Grenache] and Merlot grapes; the same as the first version. They experimented with Juicy 2.0 and used 100% Merlot—Jurriaan’s favourite variety—but it didn’t turn out quite as they expected, and this time they’re back to the tried and tested recipe.
But, like proud parents, it’s difficult for them to choose a favourite. “I like them both,” says Jurriaan. “It’s just different. Juicy 2.0 had more colour, a bit more structure, a bit more acid—because we harvested that Merlot very early. Version 3.0 is a bit riper.”
“Ok,” he springs back into action. “Let’s shovel some [grapes] in and let’s start up the press.”
Jurriaan hauls over another green bin filled with Merlot grapes, seizes a bunch and takes a bite.“I really like the taste of Merlot,” he says, grabbing another fistful. “It’s not a very sexy grape, not every a la mode, but I love it.”
There have only been two vintages made at Vinyes Tortuga to date, and the couple is still getting to know their terroir. They’re meticulous in how they analyse the flavours, tweaking techniques at every opportunity to ascertain where each characteristic comes from.
Take the subtle stoniness, for example, which Dido has detected in their wines. She wants to find out exactly where it’s coming from. Could it be from the schist soil, or perhaps from the stems?
This year they’ll experiment more with hand de-stemming—a time-consuming process that involves delicately pushing grape bunches over a large sieve with grape-sized holes.
“Then we’ll see if the stoniness also comes [through] in the wine,” Dido adds determinedly. “So I can funnel down to a conclusion. So far I’m just observing and learning—I still need to learn a lot. Sometimes it’s overwhelming with all the stuff I don’t know yet, but for me, to keep learning and to stay curious, that’s what makes life fun.”
And de-stemming is just one part of the puzzle. Jurriaan and Dido prefer either traditional direct or whole-cluster pressing for rosés like Juicy, but they experiment with a range of fermentation techniques, including carbonic maceration, and whole-cluster (whole-bunch) fermentation for their red wines.
Their wines are all fermented spontaneously with no additions [no pitched yeast, no added sulfur], including one wine, Doolittle, which undergoes maturation under flor in amphora. Otherwise known as the veil—or a pellicle—the flor is film of indigenous yeast and bacteria which forms on the surface of the ageing wine and is important in the production of certain sherries, as well as the Vin Jaune wines of the Jura in eastern France.
““To keep learning and to stay curious, that’s what makes life fun.” ”
The formation of flor helps protect against oxidation during ageing and can lead to the production of new flavour compounds giving nutty, and umami notes, and can change in mouthfeel due to the consumption of glycerol by the flor layer, producing a wine with a more pronounced dryness.
On the maturation side, they’ve employed vessels of different materials including stainless steel, oak, and more recently, clay amphora. All of the wines are bottled by gravity, with no filtration, fining agents, stabilisers and with no added sulfites.
Sometimes they’ll employ a pick ‘n’ mix of techniques to get the right blend of flavours, which can also help to balance time-consuming methods with more cost-effective ones. They are a small start-up, after all.
Hunky Dory, for example, is a Garnacha made by carbonic maceration aged in stainless steel. Carbonic maceration gives the wine its funkiness; whole bunches of grapes are left in bins for five days, before Dido and Jurriaan dance [stomping using feet otherwise known as pigeage] on them (well, that explains their huge record collection), and then press.
The fermentation starts inside the intact berries, resulting in less extraction of tannins and more fruit-forward flavours. Ageing in stainless steel meanwhile, is what Dido and Jurriaan consider a more neutral way of fermenting the wine. It’s less labour intensive, easier to clean and dancing is optional. Together, the different techniques make for a fruity yet full-bodied wine.
“Our favourite is the Hunky Dory,” says Juariaan. “It’s a very stable wine, it ferments easily, has a lot of fruit but also structure coming from the whole-bunch [fermentation]. We can't get enough of it!”
The couple has only owned the Crowdfunder-acquired vineyard for a year, but already they’ve set about transforming their patch. Their priority is the soil. A mix of schist and slate, it takes a battering from the tramontane winds heading towards the Mediterranean sea. Back at their cottage and vineyard—around five minutes drive from the bodega—Dido and Jurriaan are working hard to nourish the earth.
As well as employing organic farming methods, they sow seeds between the vines, a practice called cover cropping. Among the grapes, you’ll find fava beans, lupines, and vetches, all known to add nitrogen to the soil, necessary for the growth of the vines.
When the fierce winds hit in winter the plants protect the soil from erosion. In the spring when they’re mown the plant matter provides mulch, helping to keep the soil moist and fertile. It all helps bring the soil back to life, and in turn, attracts wildlife. For the organic winemaker, there is no greater goal than finding fat earthworms in your soil.
“That’s the dream,” says Jurriaan.
Finding worms in the ground might seem like a bizarre goal, but it’s not so crazy when you remember that Dido and Jurriaan have already smashed their first dream: to set up a vineyard.
They were first inspired by cheesy, and perhaps over-romanticised, films. “Really bad movies… like A Good Year,” laughs Dido. “But that planted a seed in our brain. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in the countryside and make wine?”
The couple started interning at vineyards around the world—from Argentina to Australia—and decided the dream would become a reality. “That really opened our eyes,” Jurriaan remembers. “We thought: we have to start now because if you start when you’re fifty you won’t have the energy.”
Passionate, curious and young, they’re not typical of the winemakers in this region, but they are part of a growing community. It’s generally big wine companies that snap up vineyards on the north-east coast, Jurriaan tells me, and they’re overworking the soil. “They either spray them or they’re biological but with a lack of attention,” he adds.
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Witnessing the effects of intensive farming has inspired change, and organic farming is blossoming in the region. While organic wine only accounts for 3.6% of global wine consumption, 79% of that is attributed to Spain and France, while Spain has seen the areas dedicated to organic winemaking increase 522% per cent over the last ten years.
La Gutina, for example, is a natural winemaker around 6 miles away from Vinyes Tortuga; their soil is so lush they graze sheep on it. A further 5 miles north are the verdant vineyards of Carriel dels Vilars, the bodega widely agreed to be the first in Spain to make natural sparkling wines around 30 years ago, under the watchful eyes of winemaker Carles Alonso.
Look a little further south and the natural wine community gets stronger. Penedés is a major winemaking region of Catalonia that’s best known for its Cava. Fizz is produced in vast quantities here, but the next generation of winemakers are turning against the tide to try and replenish their land.
“Having taken into account that we have been destroying the world for many years, now is the time to start making changes,” says Mariona Vendrell Blanco, co-founder of Succés Vinícola. Together with her partner Albert Canela Gutiérrez they make organic wines in the hills of Penedés, championing indigenous grapes like Trepat and Parellada.
They’ve seen the destruction that intensive farming can do to the land, and believe that natural winemaking is a tool for sustainability. In Mariona’s words “natural wine is one of the changes towards a more sustainable world.” It’s passion and dedication like this that resonates with wine drinkers, and nearby cities are flooded with organic and natural wines alike.
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Lo-fi wine nook Bendito runs out of a tiny stall in Mercado San Fernando in Madrid, pouring glasses of locally made wines with charcuterie and a side of vinyl. La Caníbal is bigger, with a wall of small-batch natural wine on tap—many of which you’d struggle to find outside of Spain. Barcelona, too, has an enviable scene with Bar Brutal—a taverna style restaurant and bar—leading the charge.
But it wasn’t always like this, of course. Like any movement, it took hard work to turn customers on a new style.
“It’s vinegar.”
“I don’t like it.”
“It smells like farts.”
They’re just some of the comments that Víctor Martín, head sommelier at Bar Brutal, had to deal with. It’s hard to believe now, with Bar Brutal seen by some as the definitive natural wine spot in the region, that at one point staff spent more time teaching than they did pouring. Now, natural wine flows from the taps like water.
““We have to go back a bit and use only what we need to leave the next generation with something.””
“I think that during the last five years there has been a movement in Barcelona, the most important in Spain,” Martín explains. “It’s had the explosion of the natural wine movement—you can find natural wine in almost one of [every] two bars that you go to.”
For many natural winemakers in the region, the best way to nurture their community is to attend wine fairs—and they often turn into all-out parties. Mendall wines have been a big influence in the scene, adds Martín, every year hosting the epic natural wine party H2O Vegetal. “The ambience is really festive, it’s more like all the friends coming together to show [off] their wines.”
But for Martín, the perception of natural wine being a fun product can belie its quality. He adds: “These people work really hard and make really complex and cool things.” In other words, party hard, but they also work hard.
“Most of all, for me, it’s the respect of the land, and to leave the next generation something to work with,” Martín concludes. “We are realising that we can’t continue in that way of life—with massive production. We have to go back a bit and use only what we need to leave the next generation with something.”
It’s a belief that Martín shares with the natural winemaking community, and with morals like that, there’s a promising future for this growing scene.
Here’s to the dulcet tones of Biggie Smalls ringing out over the Catalonian hills for generations to come.
