The grapes

Terra Alta

The skin of Gandesa

Our grapes emerge in a landscape bathed in sun and swept by the garbinada and cerç winds on the silent slopes of the Pàndols, Cavalls and Puig Cavaller ranges of hills, on limestone rocks and clay soil worked by our ancestors for more than five generations.

The divided land

The path we have followed couldn’t be understood without the legacy of the Vicens and the Vallespí: men and women of the land – parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and earlier ancestors – who worked the vineyards scattered all over the district without interruption since 1890 and gave them value by making honest wine from their grapes.

This is their legacy, and without it we would not be who we are today.

5a generació - Josep i Pau Vicens

4a generació - Josep Vicens i Tere Pellisa

3a generació - Cinta Vallespí i Francisco Vicens

2a generació - Josep Vallespí i Carme Alcoverro

1a generació - Josep Vallespí i Paula Vilafranca

Parcels

01.

White Grenache

It’s the grape that best represents our identity – because it wouldn’t be the same anywhere else in the world. Just like us. That's why we know this grape can only be grown by treating the most authentic and traditionally cultivated vines over 70 years old with the subtlest delicacy. 1/3 of the world's white Grenache is grown in Terra Alta.

Carignan

Carignan is intensity, acidity, colour and tannins. It’s an untamed grape, that wants poor soil and careful work on the vines.

La Sendrosa

Its amphitheatre of little terraces and stone walls means we have to work at a different pace. The land is poor, formed of conglomerates and chalky clays that make life difficult for the more than 70-year-old Grenache and Carignan vines that grow there, giving us structured wines with plenty of alcohol, that can be aged very easily.

02.

Lo Grau

The Grau vineyards rest in the shadow of the western buttress of the Serra de Pàndols: Puig Cavaller. Facing its sharp, steep slopes, Lo Grau is a cool and quiet place where we like to come, either to keep an eye on the grapes from the shade of an olive tree or to spend an evening with friends on the stone bench of the tower. It's a special place. That’s perhaps why, in 1991, our father decided to plant the first Syrah in Terra Alta here.

Syrah

Grapes from a unique place, always seeking the midday sun and the shade of the tower. On summer evenings, when the cerç wind blows, the grapes’ thick skin takes on bluish shades recalling the dark of the night.

03.

Macabeu

The sunny grape that concentrates all the golden colours, fruit and flowers of early ripening. A sincere, bold, fresh reflection of 50-year-old vines of impeccable maturity.

Les Serres

The Les Serres landscape extends over a gentle slope on Coll del Moro, almost 500 metres above sea level. Among remains of the Spanish Civil War and constantly moving wind turbines, the old gobelet vines of Les Serres grow on deep soils of sandstone, marl and shale with incrustations of calcium carbonate, giving us highly concentrated wines with an intense aroma.

04.

Los Perdigons

The contrast between plots of vines, olive trees and almond trees reflects the balance of the Terra Alta agricultural landscape. They are little patches of land with poorly developed surface soil full of conglomerate rock that produce a few kilos of grapes, just a few olives and even fewer almonds. Los Perdigons, where we grow white and black Grenache, is one of these places.

Black Grenache

Its skin is thin and reddish, having apparently ingested the prime character of the clay soil. It is a sweet grape that ripens slowly under the harsh sun of Gandesa to give us fruity, spicy wines.

05.

Corral d'en Claret

The dry stone walls edge the Syrah and White Grenache terraces of this vineyard in front of our favourite panoramic view of Gandesa. Above a chalky horizon we find marls and sandstones with a high concentration of calcium carbonate, giving us the most austere expression of the two varieties.