This shouldn’t really come as a surprise. After all, the natural park has altitude, hot days producing ripe, rich fruit and nights cooled by Mediterranean breezes. It doesn’t have humidity, but its terroir—the unique taste and substance that distinguishes it from any other—combines with the other factors to make for good-to-great wine. The thing is, nobody did make it until Josep Trallero Casañas bought a dilapidated masia (Catalan farmhouse) in the mid-Eighties and turned his hand to a little maverick winemaking under the label Serrat de Montsoriu. With just nine hectares, he churns out a surprising variety: Albariño, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Mencía and Merlot, and more recently Syrah, Petit Syrah and Petit Verdot. He doesn’t have a DO, and doesn’t particularly want one. He just wants to make the best wine he can, in a place that he loves.
I first came across his wines at Mam i Teca, a slow-food certified, Catalan tapas bar and bistro in Barcelona’s Raval district. It is run by Alfons Bach, another maverick obsessed with sourcing local products with which to delight his dining public. Specifically, I was intrigued by one of Trallero’s whites that blends seven different varieties of grape in one bottle. It quickly became a favourite, lending itself remarkably well to most dishes. It was also a source of great amusement for keeping friends guessing on what they were drinking. Interestingly, many thought it was a fino or manzanilla (both crisp, dry, white sherries from Jerez).
Eventually, after a year of talking about it, Alfons Bach and I found the time to take a trip to look at what Trallero was up to. As hoped, he was pottering about his vines examining his handiwork and fingering the dirt just as farmers should. The bodega is a little ramshackle and unkempt, boxes stacked up in corners and glasses dotted about the place, just as you imagine bodegas to be when you read books about the ‘real and forgotten Spain’.
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