Sulfites or no sulfites? A winery from 1840 is the answer.

Josep Puiggròs found his great-grandfather's vineyard in Òdena, a forgotten but well-oriented estate, "perfect for making sulfite-free wines" because there are no insects, no fungal diseases, and it's well-aerated. On this estate, he initially made a wine with sulfites: Sentits Negre. Today in the glass, we have its counterpart: Sense Sentits, which plays on "sulfite-free." They are two identical wines, one with and one without. If you both have them, you can play at telling the difference. Especially if you're like me, who often jokes with my winemaking friends. naturetis And I tell them I always carry a little bag of sulfur in my purse in case I need to pour it into a wine. It's a game. Because let me tell you, salad bags and whip contain sulfites.

And well, both wines were made the same way. Ten or twelve months in French oak. It's a red Garnacha, unfiltered, or very lightly filtered, easy to drink, since the soil has gypsum (in Òdena there is an abandoned gypsum quarry). With a lot of acidity, because they are at 500 meters above sea level. "It's a very acidic wine, it opens up your ears, but it's very smooth," she says. Its 14.5% alcohol content is very well integrated. Now, we know, there is a tendency to make less alcoholic wines, but that's not always possible. And what's trendy today won't be tomorrow, and vice versa. I like all well-made wines, and I think there's one for every moment. I like wines with a low alcohol content (within a certain order) and I like wines with a high alcohol content.

Without sulfites, in the winery, they also make a brisado (we resist, we resist with words against the so-sweet orange). "A breeze with sulfite-free white Grenache, called Impresionante, which spends some time, four months, in amphorae with the skins." The winery is in the Catalog of Natural Wines of Catalonia, in fact. "The thing is that all of my wines have very little sulfur, because the vineyards are very well cared for. I practice biodynamic farming, I follow the moons, I make nettle preparations, I spray the leaves... I have the vineyard half with plant cover and half without, depending on the season. Since it's clayey, I calque. The reds make the wine imbued with personality. These wines are very easy to drink." And they are. Today's is velvety, with Mediterranean herbs and all the fruit.

The winery dates back to 1840, and the manor house, where there were already cement winepresses for making wine. "I'm the fourth generation, and I don't know if there will be a fifth. We'll see."

Enjoy wine with meat, but also with fish. With rice dishes, if you like. The wine, so full-bodied, so rich, will cleanse your mouth of grease and make you want to keep eating. Play with wine, with both wines, if you can, because the world of wine is just a game. Josep, by the way, who never stops playing, is working on a new project in Priorat, in Porrera, which we should follow. Don't miss that Garnacha.

Sponsored by: