Els Vinyerons

Amós Bañeres worked as a pharmacist in Catalonia until natural wine got hold of him. He started making it himself in 2011, working the indigenous varieties of Penedès and above all Xarel·lo, wild fermented and bottled with nothing added.

Alex Ruiz Masach came at it from the opposite end. His family make Cava commercially, at scale. He tasted what Amós was doing with Xarel·lo when nobody intervened, and the two of them started Els Vinyerons together with a specific aim: natural wine cheap enough that somebody who would never normally pick up a natural bottle might pick this one up without thinking about it.

The naming is the nicest detail. Every wine takes the name of an insect found in the vineyard it comes from. Lluerna is a firefly, Pregadeu a praying mantis, Saltamartí a grasshopper. If the insects are there, the farming is working, and that is roughly the whole argument.

Cava Pregadeu is the headline. Xarel·lo off clay and limestone, made in the Cava tradition but with no dosage and nothing added, so you get green apple, pear and a baked biscuit note with far more life in it than the category usually allows. A natural Cava made in partnership with someone whose family built their name on the conventional sort is a decent joke as well as a very good bottle.

Lluerna is the still Xarel·lo, wild fermented and raised in barrel, with a mineral edge and a slightly creamy texture off the lees. It is what the grape does when it is the point of the wine rather than a blending component. Saltamartí is the red, Tempranillo or Ull de Llebre as it is known locally, light and aromatic and very easy to drink.

Amós also makes wine under his own name and those bottles sit in this collection too. Hey! is a Xarel·lo and Macabeu skin contact wine, and Chaxiraxi is something else entirely: Baboso Negro grown on volcanic soil in Tenerife, a long way from Penedès and well worth the detour.

Xarel·lo is one of the three classic Cava grapes and has been grown in Penedès for centuries, mostly as an acidity component in a blend. Farmed chemical-free on clay and limestone and left alone, it turns out to have plenty to say on its own: saline, stony, properly Catalan.

Everything is picked by hand and fermented on native yeasts, with no oenological products and no sulphur added at any stage.

Penedès sits inland from Barcelona and is one of the more interesting corners of Spanish natural wine right now, better known for Cava but increasingly turning out still wines worth paying attention to. Els Vinyerons work the accessible end of that, deliberately, and the prices are the argument.

What does Els Vinyerons mean?

The winemakers, in Catalan. The project is run by Amós Bañeres, a former pharmacist, and Alex Ruiz Masach, whose family run a conventional Cava house, in Penedès, Catalonia.

What is Xarel·lo?

An indigenous Catalan white grape and one of the three classic Cava varieties. Usually blended for its acidity. Farmed chemical-free and wild fermented, it makes saline, mineral wines with real character, which is what you get in both the Lluerna and the Pregadeu.

Why are the wines named after insects?

Each wine takes the name of an insect found in its vineyard. Lluerna is a firefly, Pregadeu a praying mantis and Saltamartí a grasshopper. It is a nod to the living ecosystem that chemical-free farming brings back.

Is Pregadeu a real Cava?

It is made in the Cava tradition from Xarel·lo grown on the same clay and limestone, with no dosage and no sulphur added. Very few people make natural Cava, so it is one of the more unusual sparkling wines we carry.

Do Els Vinyerons wines contain sulphites?

No sulphur is added, and no oenological products either. Small amounts of sulphites occur naturally in all wine as a by-product of fermentation, so no wine is ever truly sulphite-free.

Who is Amós Bañeres?

Half of Els Vinyerons, and a producer in his own right. His solo bottles include Hey!, a Xarel·lo and Macabeu skin contact wine, and Chaxiraxi, a Baboso Negro grown on volcanic soil in Tenerife.