It all started by chance. In Josep Serra's house they were butchers, and perhaps that is why he decided to study Environment in Girona. At the end of these studies, at the age of 20, he wanted to continue training - his wife Marta Pedra assures that he has always been very restless - and he studied Agri-Food Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). His idea was to train with the intention of “ending up making fuets and salchichones.” But in the classrooms he found a specialty, viticulture and enology, that captivated him. He had no prior vocation for the wine world. There, at the UPC, he met Marta Pedra.
While in class one day, mid-morning, the phone rang. It was her father. She thought something bad had happened. He answered the call, and saw that he was “very excited.” He explained to him that "a friend of his from soccer told him that there was an older man from Mollet de Peralada, single and without children, who had two small vineyards that he wanted to sell." And he said to him: “What, do you dare? And Josep answered: “Are you crazy or what?
In one week, however, they went to meet this veteran winegrower, Jordi Sais, and his vineyards, of the red varieties Cariñena and Garnacha, planted between 50 and 80 years ago.
The vineyards were already very well cared for then. The love was instantaneous, but they told Jordi Sais that perhaps they would buy them. They made it a condition that I help them carry them, to work them.
Jordi Sais, who did not see a future for the sector, accepted the deal, and Josep continued studying during the week to dedicate the weekends “to doing internships with this man in his vineyards.” He states that he “transmitted to us knowledge, appreciation and passion for this world.” It was the last weeks of 2002.
This is how they began to acquire neighboring fields and plant their own new vineyards. And soon they also encountered the reality of the difficulty of making the farms viable just by selling the grapes. That prompted them to take “a step forward.”
Microvins Cariñena 2019 is one of its spearheads. From the winery they define it as “soul of the Empordà”. This latest vintage is the result of a very good year. It is the result of a beautiful vineyard planted about 90 years ago between Espolla and Rabós, on slate. Its exposure is Northwest, and it is very exposed to the blows of the Tramuntana.
And he also assures that “it is our most iconic vineyard.” They renamed it 'the Mini vineyard' since the previous owner had parked a British Racing Green Mini there, under a large cork tree.
The former owner, who used this small car manufactured by the British Motor Corporation as a place to store vineyard tools and take shelter, covered the Mini with stones, as if it were a dry stone hut. Josep Serra says today that "it seems as if nature was eating it."
The label also reports its color intensity (9.1), its pH (3.48) and alcoholic strength (14.5º), its total tartaric acidity (5.57), its vintage (2019) and variety (cariñena). , the months of aging in barrels (19), where the oak of their barrels is from (France), the capacity of the bottle (75 centilitres) or its serving temperature (17º C).
It is a red that is part of the Microvins collection, which are single-varietal wines from old vineyards – some over one hundred years old – from native varieties and plots “of extreme typicity.” They are made in small volumes. They have “a lot of character.” They experiment in the production processes, in very controlled conditions and recovering ancestral techniques.
The Vinyeta Microvins Cariñena 2019 is medium-layered and the color of cherry cherries. It offers notes reminiscent of fresh fruit (plums and cherries), chocolate and scrubland (rosemary) on a mineral bed (pencil tip). Of medium aromatic intensity.
It is a very stylized red, with good acidity. With polished tannins. Fluidity and nerve, with a somewhat electric touch. Elegance prevails over volume, and the aging in wood (they use third and fourth year barrels) is very well integrated.
In the olfactory phase, the wood is more present than in the gustatory phase, with notes reminiscent of cedar from a cigar box and with empyreumatic touches (coffee). Also its alcohol is very well integrated.
Josep Serra likes to enjoy his wine with a lamb knuckle from Empordà de Ramats de Foc, an association that brings together Catalan shepherds and firefighters who work, in strategic places throughout Catalonia, to prevent major fires. Marta Pedra likes to enjoy this wine with soupy mountain rice, rabbit and pork ribs.
Josep Serra and Marta Pedra are currently promoting various projects. They are beginning to make small ceramic jugs, replicas of pieces that are kept in the Terracotta Ceramic Museum of La Bisbal d'Empordà. They were introduced to a local ceramist, Josep Matés, who is a teacher at the Escola de Ceràmica de La Bisbal, who made replicas of 500 and 600 liter capacity of ancient dolias (dolium), the pottery vessels of ancient Rome.
With them they want to reproduce “what the Romans did”, although not to the letter. They buried the dolias in a small hut located in an old cariñena vineyard.
On the other hand, they are working with Anna Puig from the Institut Català de la Vinya i el Vi de la Generalitat, to select a strain of their own yeast. Currently, they are identifying those that are dominant. At the same time, they are working on a three-way project with the Llançà City Council and the intermediate degree in Viticulture and Oenology at the institute of this Alt Empordà municipality. The City Council has given them a piece of land at the entrance to the town where La Vinyeta has planted the Alexandria muscat variety, from which the historic wines of this enclave were obtained. The vineyard is a practice field for the institute's students and the City Council, at the same time, has seen the entrance to Llançà dignified. With its grapes La Vinyeta will make a wine “representative of the town.”
At the same time, they collaborate with doctorates from Lequia (University of Girona) to use wine by-products for the production of new products with commercial interest, such as caproic acid. They also do it with the company Inèdit Innova for the optimization of wine containers and packaging or with the University of Girona for the optimization of the pilot plant for the purification of winery wastewater through a biological lagoon system.
They only export 15% of their production. Belgium, Denmark and the United States are its three main international markets.
They installed 40kw of photovoltaic solar panels that provide electricity to the winery and the rest of the facilities of their operation. The solar panels also supply energy to your small hotel, an additional 9kw. In this way, they move closer to full energy self-sufficiency and minimize greenhouse gas emissions.
They work their vineyards following the principles of regenerative agriculture. They certify their products through the Catalan Council of Ecological Production and the Catalan Council of Integrated Production
They were pioneers in betting on wine tourism in the Empordà. They offer picnics, breakfasts, tastings, guided tours and even accommodation among vineyards. They receive about 15,000 visits a year. At the 2017 Night of Wine Tourism of Catalonia they were awarded the National Wine Tourism Award. A year later the Catalan Association of Sommeliers awarded them as the best Catalan winery. In addition to collaborating with Ramats de Foc and recovering transhumance in Empordà (they have 350 sheep), they created a white and a red, Monos* de La Vinyeta, to collaborate with the Mona Foundation in the conservation of primates.
In addition, they have sealed an agricultural stewardship agreement with the environmental entity of Empordà Iaeden, with which environmental co-management of their exploitation has been carried out with the carrying out of flora inventories, the placement of nest boxes or advice on the reuse of water. . And they recovered an abandoned centuries-old olive grove and began to produce oil of the traditional variety, Argudell.
They also saw that by refusing to press the grapes they obtained seeds and skins, and they thought that with this they could feed some chickens.
They also incorporated sheep to control the vegetation cover in the vineyards and olive trees, and they thought they could milk them to get milk and make cheese. In 2018 they built the cheese factory where they make cheese with their milk and also with milk from neighboring cow, sheep and goat farms, most of them organic.
And Marta Pedra also continues to promote her personal project in her land, Conca de Barberà (Vins de Pedra).
