For twenty straight years, former Spanish champion sommelier Enric Soler has made wines that read like love letters. They are a public expression that Xarel-lo is worth time, effort, and attention. His zen-like focus on the grape has led to nicknames (The Iron Knight of Xarel-lo) and resounding accolades.

Xarel-lo is typically blended with Parellada and Macabeo in Catalunyan cavas, but in the right hands, it exhibits the balance and structure of the world’s great white wines.

Soler works his grandfather’s 78-year-old Xarel-lo vineyards (Vinyas del Taus) and a younger but more rural vineyard (Espenyalluchs) biodynamically with stunning results. His grandfather’s old bush-trained vines are surrounded by vibrant ground cover and lovingly tended. He waxes poetically about these vines saying that they are like us and that old people and vineyards need special attention and care. While the Espenyalluchs vineyard is younger, it’s easy to see the potential of the clay soils in this remote, high-altitude (400m) corner of Catalunya.

Like his farming, there is elegance, balance, and intention in every step of his winemaking process. He harnesses rich acidity and transforms the firm phenolics of the Xarel-lo grapes into character and structure through minimal but precise cellar treatments.

This is a tiny, young vine plot (paraje) made up of cuttings from the Nun vineyard, grafted onto old Parellada rootstock over a decade ago, and planted at an altitude of 400m where ripeness is not guaranteed on pure clay. Fermented and aged on the lees for eight months in four and five-year-old French oak barrels.

The wine is energetic, with much of the same herbal quality as the older vine wines, but with a dynamic freshness that can only be attributed to youth, elevation, and cooler climate. Only 240 cases are produced.