As Pepe Raventós says: “Making a great wine is an easier task than we tend to think.”

And we all know that wine is made in the vineyard and the vineyard is where it all begins, but we are perhaps unaware – or not sufficiently aware – of all the work behind the scenes, everything that working the land involves.

At home, viticulture is an exciting task linked to keywords such as time, vintage, animal and man. For us – man – the winegrower is involved in all these concepts; every decision is crucial and, in the end, what he does is as important as what he stops doing. The imprint of the winegrower is key.

The work schedule of the vineyard is the most artisanal and traditional part in the development of a wine. Work in the vineyard is cyclical, repeated every twelve months and it never stops; Mother Nature and the plant have as much to say as the winegrower himself.

These are the winegrowers on our estate: Joan Lluís Juan, Josep and a large team from Baena; they are the main driving force behind everything that ends up happening in the winery; their love for the land and the animals, make them the right people to apply biodynamic viticulture on our estate.

All of them care for our vines throughout the year like nobody else. Some of the most significant tasks for the winegrower are monitoring growth, managing how the soil is worked so its structure is good, together with a good balance of water competition between the vines and the grass during the summer, preventing fungi and / or fungal diseases and harvesting at the right time.

Without forgetting jobs like these, in this post, as we are on the verge of summer and drawing closer to the harvest, we would like to share with you the changes and the rebirth our estate experiences every spring.

And to explain how our team in the vineyard, works every day to accompany the plant on its way to achieving optimum fruit to create the best possible sparkling wine that the vintage permits. 

A vintage that we are quietly confident about since the plant is healthy, with strength and energy and the vegetative growth is good.

So, among the most important tasks performed during the spring on the estate, we find:

Green pruning, that we began just after Easter, removing old wood shoots; now, after the flowering, we continue to remove mature leaves and younger ones from the vine to aerate the grapes and prevent fungal diseases. This is perhaps the most laborious of all the tasks, but also the most rewarding!

The application of biodynamic preparations is another task we perform during the spring months. We apply the biodynamic preparation 500 during the month of March to enliven the soil and the 501preparation of silica after the sprouting, this year in early May, to bring vitality and help us obtain good plant growth.

During spring is also the time to train the vine: this involves tying the most vigorous shoots at the very top of the plant so that it can be ventilated. The aim is to get more leaf surface in contact with sunlight and to aerate the grapes. We do this mainly on the Clos del Serral plot because it faces north and has few hours of sunshine.

Placing the pheromone dispensers that enable sexual confusion of the Lobesia Botrana and support natural biological control.

The field and the vineyard do not rest, we are now in full flowering and setting of the fruit, we will let the vineyard continue to talk to us and we will continue to adapt to the vintage, a key concept in meteorology terms.

So, in the Raventós i Blanc vineyards, there is a gradual return to earlier times when the entire estate was farmed with 8 horses. One of the tasks in the spring, that our horses help us with, is when we work on the vegetative coverings, pushing down the grass towards the strains, which will provide the soil with nutrients.

Our philosophy is not to follow any philosophy. Trying to connect with nature around us, with the earth that nourishes our vineyards, the weather of the moment, and making decisions with the utmost respect and thinking long-term. Doing what we love doing, with rigour and passion. Taking care of the details. Listening and loving.

A day on our estate, is, in reality, like going on a journey where the destination means returning to the beginnings. We encourage you, through each publication to join us on our journey!