The vineyards of the DO Empordà give a particular air to the landscape and accentuate its beauty. The panoramic views turn into poetry when the green vines contrast with the blue of the sea. Although archaeology confirms the existence of wild vines and the wine trade in the Iberian period, it was not until Roman times that the regular cultivation of vines began in the many villas built during the Roman Empire The vine conquered an increasingly inhospitable terrain. With the plain given over to cereals, the vineyards had to climb the slopes. The terraces built at Cap de Creus, with their 14,000 kilometres of dry stone walls, were filled with vines. At the same time, or later, the Benedictines – the builders of Europe – and other religious orders continued the cultivation of the vine, disseminating it and becoming the first great socialisers of wine.
The DO Empordà was established in 1975. Under this distinction there are wines produced with different varieties of Garnatxa grapes, known here as Lledoner, along with Samsó and Carinyena, Macabeu and Alexandria Muscatel.
Their commitment to the landscape and the sustainability of the territory led ten Empordà wineries to join the “Taps de Finca” brand in 2018, an initiative promoted by the Institut Català del Suro (Catalan Cork Institute) and the DO Empordà to uphold native cork. Indeed, the cork oak (Quercus suber) is one of the essential elements of the Mediterranean landscape. The cork oak, more than any other plant species, coexists quite well with fire as it has a great capacity for regeneration after wildfires.
The wines with the 2023 – 2024 Girona Excel·lent seal
Auria
This bright, straw-coloured young white wine, floral, fruity and fresh, which has organic certification, is made with small Moscatell grapes from vines planted on slaty soil at the Mas Llunes family winery. The Roig family can be traced back to 1389 in Garriguella and has a long history in viticulture and the production of wines and spirits. They prioritise indigenous varieties, only using grapes from their own vineyards and following the criteria of organic production.
Company: Mas Llunes, vinyes i cellers, S.L.
Masia Carreras white wine
The Masia Carreras white wine comes from a vineyard with mixed vines of different varieties, planted in granite soil by their ancestor Narcís Fabra between 1905 and 1906. Carinyena Blanca predominates, although other varieties also stand out, such as Carinyena Roja, Garnatxa Blanca and Garnatxa Roja, as well as others from vines that the family used for table grapes, such as Jaumets and Colló de Gall, or for making raisins, such as Picapoll. As their ancestors did, they make wine from all the varieties combined. This blend, which was made by their great-grandfather, is aged for 12 months in French oak barrels, and makes a very unique wine.
Company: Celler Martí Fabra, S.C.P.
Oriol rosé wine
Vinyes dels Aspres produces this Oriol rosé wine using only red Garnatxa grapes (the Lledoner Roig variety, one of the most characteristic varieties of the Empordà region), for one of the wines that defined the past of this wine region. Fermented in old French oak barrels, this wine is a pale pink with an orange tinge. It has an aromatic herbaceous aroma and is fresh on the palate, with notes of autumn fruits, such as figs and cherries. Vinyes dels Aspres, in Cantallops, have their winery in Can Batlle, a manor house at the foot of the Albera mountains, that dates to as early as the seventeenth century. They only work and harvest grapes from their own property, using the traditional varieties most adapted to the country.
Company: Vinyes dels Aspres, SL
L’Oratori 2021
L’Oratori is a hill that climbs up between Sant Climent Sescebes and Mollet de Peralada, in the last foothills of the Albera range, with views of the Gulf of Roses and the Montgrí massif. In this location we find the Martí Fabra winery at the farmhouse of a family that can trace the purchase of their vineyard back to a document dated 1305. It is located in an emblematic estate where the Lledoner Negre grape is mostly grown, a variety that predominates in the Oratori blend, a fresh and fruity wine aged for 12 months in concrete.
Company: Celler Martí Fabra, S.C.P.
Perelada Aires de Garbet 2019
The renowned Castell de Peralada winery is the largest and most spectacular in the Empordà region and probably one of the best sustainable and eco-efficient wineries in the world. In addition, the integration into the landscape of the RCR Arquitectes project turns this cellar into a building as majestic as any medieval cathedral or great classical monument. This silky, fresh, intense and very balanced wine, cherry in colour and with a wide aromatic range of Mediterranean maquis, has been made exclusively with Garnatxa Negra grapes.
Company: Cavas del Castillo de Perelada SA.
G de Gerisena 2016
The Gerisena winery makes this traditional sparkling wine only with grapes harvested in Garriguella of the Macabeu, Garnatxa Blanca and Moscatell d’Alexandria varieties. It is a versatile lightly sparkling wine that is fresh, bright pale yellow with greenish hues, an aroma of fleshy white fruit with a hint of citrus, and a dried fruit finish. The Garriguella i Rabós Agricultural Cooperative dedicates 30 hectares of its best old vines, with an average age of 70 years, to the wines under its Celler Gerisena brand.
Company: Agrícola de Garriguella i Rabós SCCL
L’Efervescent 2021
Sparkling wines made using the ancestral method are making a reappearance following the oenological revolution of wines with little intervention, with a strong connection to the earth and without added sulphites. The ancestral method refers to a sparkling wine with a single fermentation, which takes place in two phases. The must begins its fermentation in stainless steel tanks with the grapes’ own yeasts, and before this fermentation is completed, the wine is bottled in the final bottle. In this way, the bubbles at the end of fermentation cannot escape and are integrated into the wine. This ancestral rosé wine is made with Garnatxa Negra grapes planted in 2001 in La Cumella, an estate with granite soil.
Company: Celler Arché Pagès, SL
Fortified wines
In the Mediterranean tradition, the sobretaula has been essential since the day Plato found the inspiration to write The Symposium, about a semi-formal banquet followed by ceremonial toasts. After the meal is when the fortified wines come out: vi ranci (aged wine), Moscatell, Garnatxa or Mistela, which many people accompany with biscuits, teules, neules, carquinyolis, pastes seques, bunyols, tortell, etc. And if the gathering carries on, llonganissa sausage and fuet might be served as a savoury contrast, accompanied by the most aged Garnatxa wines.
References to the sobretaula abound in literature, a moment that is usually sweet, not because of the biscuits or the wines, but because the moments at the table after eating are usually memorable, made possible by the good company and the wines brought to the table for the occasion, especially when a memorable session is on the cards.
Part of the conversation may refer to the sweetness of the wines. Whether the Moscatell is sweet, floral and mellow. Whether the Garnatxa, a naturally sweet wine made with Lledoner grapes, is the most unique and characteristic product of the Designation of Origin. Whether you prefer a higher concentration of sugar, or a higher degree of oxidation, more like the ancestral vi ranci. In fact, the oxidative ageing processes have been recovered from ancient traditions to preserve the exquisite flavour of our patient ancestors.
Fortified wines with the Girona Excel·lent 2023 – 2024 seal
Somnis de Gerisena
The Garriguella and Rabós Agricultural Cooperative, founded in 1963, designed the Gerisena winery to make signature wines that reflect the Empordà region. One of the most successful results of this initiative is Somnis de Gerisena, an Empordà Garnatxa wine that has triumphed everywhere. In 2023, this naturally sweet wine, made with Lledoner Roig grapes from old mountain vines that are over 50 years old, won one of the 11 double gold medals, the highest distinction in the international Grenaches du Monde competition. This delicious wine, amber in colour with golden hues, with aromas of apricots and toasted dried fruit and nuts and a hint of green walnut, spends a minimum of 24 months of oxidative aging in French oak barrels and 30 months aging in demijohns out in the open in the sun.
Company: Agrícola de Garriguella i Rabós SCCL
Torre de Capmany Garnatxa d’Empordà Velles Soleres
This Empordà Garnatxa wine is produced by the Pere Guardiola winery in Capmany, using grapes from the Lledoner Roig and Lledoner Blanc varieties, grown according to the traditional Empordà system of old family soleras for a minimum of two years. This highly praised naturally sweet wine lingers on the palate, and is characterised by a great aromatic complexity, in which there are nuances of confectionery, dried fruit, plums and raisins, with notes of roasting and caramel. The Pairó family’s winemaking can be traced back to 1871, but they did not establish the winery until the end of the 1980s.
Company: Pere Guardiola, SL
Sinols Moscatell
Moscatell has always been on the table next to Garnatxa wine to accompany dried fruit, biscuits and bunyols (doughnuts). Sinols Moscatell by Empordàlia is a natural dessert wine, fresh, floral and elegantly sweet, made with late-harvested Alexandria Moscatell grapes, harvested from vineyards that are more than twenty years old in Pau, Garriguella, Rabós, Llançà and Llers, located on the plains in alluvial, sandy and granite terrain. Empordàlia is a cooperative established in 1995 from the union of the former cooperative wineries of Pau, Roses and Vilajuïga.
Company: Empordàlia SCCL
Vidorra
This ambrosia made from more than 50 herbs, flowers and spices is macerated in Chardonnay for 60 days and 40 nights. Is it a wine, a vermouth, a herbal wine or a state-of-the-art ratafia? There are different answers to this question – from sommeliers, botanists, specialists in and fans of medicinal herbs, honeys, ratafias and vermouths. The herbs are from Emporarom, a project of Empordà farmers, and the wine is from Mas Vida, harvested manually by Adriana Fernández, from Cistella. The Chardonnay encapsulates the herbarium of the captivating Empordà landscape.
Company: Bodegas Mas Vida
