When everything comes full circle

“Our work, basically, is like an artist’s. We strive to obtain the best possible grapes and wine from each plot.” This is how Pepe defines his passion, his work. This is how the harvest begins for us, finalizing sketches and creations, the most longed-for moment of the year. The moment when anything is possible.

Just like every other year, there have been some unique and memorable moments during the harvest. Although perhaps the most special of all is when the entire Raventós i Blanc team works together to harvest the vineyards of xarel·lo which for us are the most exceptional and emblematic: “El Clos del Serral” and “La Vinya del Mas”.

The plots are small; the vines unique, old and extraordinary, which is why they need special treatment. All of us together, with great care and attention, work on these plots and in a little over two hours, we harvest the entire xarel·lo variety. The grapes are then placed in small boxes and transferred to the winery, located in the middle of the estate where, with great care and hours of dedication, a fresh manual selection, grape by grape, is performed.

Since both plots are of great viticultural and historical value, they are worked exclusively throughout the year with animal power. No motorized vehicles are used at all. In the near future, the entire farm will be worked like this, following in the tradition of our ancestors. And so it is that everything comes full circle, like the sense of belonging that we all feel year after year when we return to “El Clos.”

For us, this has been the most premature harvest in history according to our historical archives. Harvesting has never before begun so early; the dawn of 10th August marked the starting point of the 2017 harvest; a fortnight before last year.

The high rainfall we had during the fall of 2016 and into early spring and the mild winter temperatures allowed for good vegetative growth of the plant and advanced budding. But in fact, it was the heatwaves recorded during July and August that indicate that this vintage is extreme.

Despite Mother Nature – the weather has not been kind this year – the grapes are in perfect health, due to the vineyard work carried out throughout the agricultural year. Harvest is the culmination of a full year’s work which is why we work the entire farm according to the methods of biodynamic agriculture. We use both spontaneous and seeded vegetation cover and compost from our animal manure to obtain a fertile soil and a self-reliant plant; a living soil is a living plant, and a living plant, a grape with personality.

In addition, we follow the lunar calendar to perform the different jobs in the vineyard. For example, we prune and fertilize during the descending moon, we plant during the ascending moon and we harvest on a fruit day.

It is only with this meticulous work carried out throughout the year, that we manage to extract the maximum potential from our vineyards, creating sparkling wines of unique character.

Our objective and commitment is always to obtain wines that are a faithful reflection of the plot, the variety and the vintage. Wines that bring us back to its origin, Conca del Riu Anoia, a small piece of land located in a unique environment. As far back as 1928, Manuel Raventós Doménec affirmed the immense potential of this terroir: “The Champagne producers claim that there is no terroir in the world that is better or as good as Champagne for making sparkling wine. This is quite implausible because it would be too much of a coincidence if Dom Perignon’s chance invention just happened to take place precisely in the location with the best conditions for sparkling wine.”

We started on Thursday 10th and finished on Wednesday 30th; there have been 20 intense days of harvest in the Estate. Work is done; we will have to wait with patience the result of this amazing vintage.

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