Garnatxa is the Catalan for Garnacha/Grenache. We visited the producer, Pares Balta, a few years back. We were guests of their Calgary importers. Their most common wine in our market is called 'B'. It is inexpensive and reasonably tasty. The packaging, to me, looks cheap. They have a few other higher end wines in our market but I didn't know them well. Pares Balta works with organics and biodynamics, so that held interest.
We visited Pares Balta with the nice (and very affluent) Catalan couple whose house we were staying in. I had contacted them about a house swap. They said, just come and stay with us. Oh yes.
We were met at the winery by a young female staff member. Instead of taking us on the typical winery tour, she piled the four of us into her jeep and drove us away from the winery into the mountains. Deep into the mountains. After a number of kilometers there was a small vineyard. She broke open a bottle of an incredible white of an indigenous variatal grown in that vineyard. There is nothing like tasting a wine in the very spot that the grapes grew. The young lady was on the winemaking team, post grad oenology student, and crackerjack, really smart. There is absolutely nothing better than drinking a wine from the single spot on the planet where the grapes were grown, listening and learning from the person who made it.
Then she piled us back in the jeep and drove us deeper into the mountains. In fact it was a national forest, without paved roads. Every few bumpy kilometers she would stop and show us postage stamp sized vineyards that belonged to them. She explained they had a special license to farm these certain spots in the forest.
How in the world do you farm, economically in such remote places? They have absolutely zero
economies of scale. Just getting crews in and out must be nuts and labour costs in Catalonia are
Then she piled us back in the jeep and drove us deeper into the mountains. In fact it was a national forest, without paved roads. Every few bumpy kilometers she would stop and show us postage stamp sized vineyards that belonged to them. She explained they had a special license to farm these certain spots in the forest.
 |
| Les Valls-Les Torres vineyard |
How in the world do you farm, economically in such remote places? They have absolutely zero
economies of scale. Just getting crews in and out must be nuts and labour costs in Catalonia are
not low.
Up up we bumped along. She showed us a gash in the side of the road. The exposed soil was an
incredible red. She explained that this was the soil the ancient Iberians used for clay. They made pottery
and such. They also made pottery for wine, she said. This was total news to me. We were taught the
Romans “brought civilization and the vine" to the Iberian peninsula.
Pares Balta had found remnants of the pottery and amphora. They thought, if this soil was good
enough to grow our grapes and good enough to make amphora for the ancients, maybe it will do for us. They started using the same soil to make amphora and eggs for fermentation and storage of 21st century wines.
We have found wineries here and there starting to use amphora and eggs. They usually truck the huge, fragile pots at great cost and care from Georgia, where they are made. I don't know any other producer who makes their own from their own soil.
By this time I am getting it - these people are serious, but maybe, ever so slightly crazy.
Our story is far from over.
Deeper we go, bumping along, until even the jeep can't go any further. So, as my mom would say,
we rode shank's mare. We walked to a spot in the mountains where archaeologists from a university
had a dig. It was an ancient kiln, or rather the remains in the ground of a kiln. She explained how it
worked, or how they think it worked, and how the ancients used the kiln to make the amphora to
make their wine. In school and books we were taught wine would not come to this land for hundreds
of years. Together with civilization. And Romans.
Geeky side note: How do archaeologists know an ancient culture made wine, rather than the
pots being for some other use? Two ways - wine grape seeds have a particular pointy end.
Other grape seeds are oval. And they find tartaric acid, which is left behind after wine is
made. Tartaric acid is almost exclusively from wine making. If you have ever seen what appears to be
pieces of glass inside a wine bottle, it is harmless tartaric acid (tartrites).
I looked around at nothing but trees and rocks and mountains and tried to figure out what those people
were doing in such a remote spot and what kind of community could live there that the kiln could support.
Up up we bumped along. She showed us a gash in the side of the road. The exposed soil was an
incredible red. She explained that this was the soil the ancient Iberians used for clay. They made pottery
and such. They also made pottery for wine, she said. This was total news to me. We were taught the
Romans “brought civilization and the vine" to the Iberian peninsula.
Pares Balta had found remnants of the pottery and amphora. They thought, if this soil was good
enough to grow our grapes and good enough to make amphora for the ancients, maybe it will do for us. They started using the same soil to make amphora and eggs for fermentation and storage of 21st century wines.
We have found wineries here and there starting to use amphora and eggs. They usually truck the huge, fragile pots at great cost and care from Georgia, where they are made. I don't know any other producer who makes their own from their own soil.
By this time I am getting it - these people are serious, but maybe, ever so slightly crazy.
Our story is far from over.
 |
| Isn't this the prettiest dirt? |
Deeper we go, bumping along, until even the jeep can't go any further. So, as my mom would say,
we rode shank's mare. We walked to a spot in the mountains where archaeologists from a university
had a dig. It was an ancient kiln, or rather the remains in the ground of a kiln. She explained how it
worked, or how they think it worked, and how the ancients used the kiln to make the amphora to
make their wine. In school and books we were taught wine would not come to this land for hundreds
of years. Together with civilization. And Romans.
 |
| Kiln school for Keith |
 |
| Modern Amphora. Pares Balta winery, from the soils of the mountains of the Penedes, Catalonia |
 |
| Ancient Iberian pottery, Pares Balta Winery |
Geeky side note: How do archaeologists know an ancient culture made wine, rather than the
pots being for some other use? Two ways - wine grape seeds have a particular pointy end.
Other grape seeds are oval. And they find tartaric acid, which is left behind after wine is
made. Tartaric acid is almost exclusively from wine making. If you have ever seen what appears to be
pieces of glass inside a wine bottle, it is harmless tartaric acid (tartrites).
I looked around at nothing but trees and rocks and mountains and tried to figure out what those people
were doing in such a remote spot and what kind of community could live there that the kiln could support.
Through a break in the trees, far up above we could see a structure, the top of a tower. She said it was a
hermitage. Wanna see? Oh yes. So she found the path with the jeep and uppity up we went. At the top
was a sanctuary and chapel. It was amazing and the view of Catalonia was breathtaking.
Something else. Years ago I studied about the Black Madonna. All over the Catholic world are icons of Mary with a black face. Her features are not black african. Nor are they darkened from age. They are either carved in ebony or the original paints were black pigments. Sometimes the baby Jesus in her lap is also black.
The Dalai Llama said he thinks there might be a connection between her and the Buddha Tara, the only
female Buddha in traditional Buddhism.
(In the form of Buddhism I practice, we are all female Buddhas and we are all male Buddhas.)
Depictions of Buddha Tara show her sitting in an unusual lotus position. Only one leg is crossed. The
other leg extends forward as she is always ready to jump into the world to save the suffering.
hermitage. Wanna see? Oh yes. So she found the path with the jeep and uppity up we went. At the top
was a sanctuary and chapel. It was amazing and the view of Catalonia was breathtaking.
Something else. Years ago I studied about the Black Madonna. All over the Catholic world are icons of Mary with a black face. Her features are not black african. Nor are they darkened from age. They are either carved in ebony or the original paints were black pigments. Sometimes the baby Jesus in her lap is also black.
The Dalai Llama said he thinks there might be a connection between her and the Buddha Tara, the only
female Buddha in traditional Buddhism.
(In the form of Buddhism I practice, we are all female Buddhas and we are all male Buddhas.)
Depictions of Buddha Tara show her sitting in an unusual lotus position. Only one leg is crossed. The
other leg extends forward as she is always ready to jump into the world to save the suffering.
So the Black Madonna has held a fascination with me for years.
But I had never seen her.
In a corner of the chapel was enshrined a Black Madonna. Or maybe it was a copy of a Black Madonna.
The sole monk said that during the Spanish Civil war, many republicans hid from the fascists in these
mountains. The republicans thought that if they were caught, yes they would be tortured and killed, and
also the fascists would take the Black Madonna. So they hid her and replaced it with a copy. Hid her well and never put her back. Maybe.
(Photos courtesy of Yoshiko)
 |
| Santa Maria de Foix, Patroness of the Penedès Photo from Catalan Tourism and Culture |
 |
| Black Tara Picture from chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com |
