Alex and Petra of Finca la Despeinada, a small domaine in the rugged mountains of Southern Catalonia, epitomize the spirit of natural winemaking that got us into the business to begin with. In a world of radicals, Alex and Petra’s project stands out as particularly visionary. Alex grew up in the South of France and learned his trade from the great Jean-Baptiste Dutheil of Château Sainte Anne in Bandol. In his 20s, he set off backpacking across Latin America and encountered his companion Petra, a fellow free-spirit, born in Austria. When the couple returned to Europe they chose Terra Alta nearly at random, judging that land was cheap and fertile. With their life savings they purchased a small plot of land in the commune of Bot, a sandy mountain enclave at about 500 meters above the Mediterranean Sea, which you can feel in the breeze even if it’s not visible on the horizon. During the first couple of years, Alex and Petra lived out of their camper van while building their home by hand, from a combination of pine, clay and found materials – New Mexico’s earthships come to mind! For its part, the cellar consisted of a giant hole dug in the ground with a thatched roof, also built by hand with materials from the forest. Rustic, but clean and minimalist, this is the cellar where most of the domaine’s work continues today, along with a second, more modern building in nearby Gandesa.
La Despeinada‘s style of winemaking is practically impossible to synthesize into a neat summary, if only because Alex and Petra conceive of each harvest, and in fact each ánfora, as presenting distinct aesthetic challenges. Like their friend and fellow-traveler Laureano Serres, they rarely make the same wines from one year to the next. Intuition, spontaneity and ancestral technique are called upon in equal measure to produce wines that capture the mood and the moment. That said, there are some recurring themes that stand out in their winemaking. Despite coming from outside the community, or perhaps because of it, Alex and Petra aspire to make wines that are true to the place, which is characterized by hot summers, cold, even snowy, winters and above all, wind! So much wind! Unlike the lower areas of Terra Alta, such as Pinell de Brai, which are generally calcareous, the land of Bot is composed of “panal,” a type of compacted sand that is rich in sea fossils. In the cellar, this combination of land and weather translates as rich and salty wines with trenchant acidity, a sort of Platonic ideal of Mediterranean wine. Additives are never used at La Despeinada, which means that the quality of fruit is extremely important. On a surface of around 2.5 hectares that they work virtually alone, Alex and Petra have come to know each and every vine.