In the mid 90’s architects Antonella Gerosa & Massimo Marchiori moved to Barcelona from their native Piedmont region of Italy. Once there they yearned for a slower lifestyle, to grow their own produce and reconnect with the land. So they searched the surrounding areas and in 2001 found a property in Bonastre, just over an hour south of Barcelona. This isolated property, “El Maiol” is surrounded by a protected forest, and was planted with almond and olive trees, interspersed with rosemary, thyme and Mediterranean scrub. It truly is a magical place and Anto and Massimo were instantly connected to it.

While enamored by the local foodstuffs that they and their neighbors produced they found the local wine often lacking. With all that warmth and sunshine the tendency in Catalan is to produce powerful reds and rich whites from famous international varieties that often seem geared toward the hordes of tourists that descend upon Barcelona every spring and summer. They quickly realized that if they wanted to have local access to the type of wine they love to drink - raw, visceral and pungent reds, and salty, turbid, expressive whites - that they were going to have to make them themselves.

Antonella and Massimo have an insatiable level of energy, a quality that transmutes into their wine, and poured every bit of it into this project. They began to buy tiny, old-vine plots throughout their adopted home mostly of varieties that had fallen well out of favor, some nearly extinct. In most cases, the vineyards were close to being abandoned. Whenever they find a new vineyard, they’ll go to the nearby town, find out who the owner is and approach them to buy or at least farm the vineyard, organically of course. The soils are composed of clay with a high proposition of limestone. Their love for these old, difficult to farm and extremely low yielding vineyards have got the locals to dub them the Crazy Italians.

Well those Crazy Italians have brought a lot of attention and a new found respect for the historical varieties of the region. They are making some of the most sought after and exciting natural wines coming from anywhere. Working with so many different varieties they make a dizzying array of wines, some single variety, some blends, all incredibly compelling. Some of the varieties you may have heard of such as Sumoll or Bobal but some I was completely unfamiliar with until I became obsessed with these wines such as Vinyater or Cartoixa Vermell.

As previously mentioned all farming is done organically and with the utmost respect for this protected land. Massimo who is in charge of the winemaking is self taught which is testament to his inherent talent and intellect. Each variety is treated differently with different maceration times and level of whole cluster inclusion or completely destemmed. As one would expect fermentation happens with the help of native yeast. The wines are then racked and whether blended or not they hangout in inox tanks where they age for an average of six months before bottling. Unfiltered, unfined, no sulfur, no acidifying. As natural as it gets. Common denominator in all of their wines is low alcohol and cutting acidity which is the secret to their inherent stability.