The exterior of the building, rusty iron and all as is the design fixation in Catalonia currently.

It was just a bit over a year and a half ago that I first visited the new (at the time) winery of La Vinyeta. What a difference 20 months makes. For starters, they now have their website fully up and running which does a great job of showing the design aesthetic that goes in to the look of all things Vinyeta, which are created by the winemaker's brother. It was a bit hard to convey that in 2007 as the winery wasn't finished and they only had a couple of releases. The winery is indeed done now and open for visits most of the week, although they generally follow the sun, meaning that winter hours are shorter and summer hours, longer. Visiting in the winter probably isn't allowing this region of Catalonia to be all that it can be. Upon getting out of the car, it was like getting clocked by a sack of ice cubes as the Tramuntana wind ripped through every layer I had on, freezing me to the core until I got inside the winery.     But beyond all these superficial changes, there is the fact that the wines have matured and not just in aging; they're massively more complex and I would say demanding a great deal of respect now. While winemaker Josep Serra Pla is youngish at 31 and it would seem that he is steadying his hand with his craft, it's actually the material available that has changed the wines more than anything else. In my prior visit, he still wasn't harvesting from Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot vineyards. This means that the Heus Negre was good in 2007, but not outstanding. This has solidly changed. The addition of blending the grapes from his new vineyards has made this wine delectable. With a blending of 27% Syrah, 26% Merlot, 25% Samsó, and 22% Garnatxa, the Garnatxa is not as pronounced now and it's creating a more round wine with chocolate touches to it, as well as bold, unwavering depth to the body. The best part is that it's still high enough in tannins to be great with food and only €6. If I ever live in the region, I think I know what my daily drinker is going to be.     But there are more wines to his lineup now and what's great is that they just build upon each other. The Llavors (pron. Lya-bors) takes off from the Heus and presents an even stronger wine, albeit still smooth. Comprised of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Samsó and 12% Merlot and 8% Garnatxa, it spends five months in an oak regimen of French, Hungarian, and Romanian barrels. It is firm in the mouth with touches of boysenberry and strawberry, yet it pulls back enough to still be had with foods.     The Puntiapart, with it's very clever boxes you can see here, is the boldest of all the reds that Josep is making. This blend of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Samsó, 23% Merlot makes for a strong wine, yet oddly enough, it's the smoothest of the lot. It goes through a grueling, slaving, absolutely treacherous 13 months of lying in the oak to reach the point where you get what you taste from the bottle; a delicately balanced wine with a great deal of substance to the body. It is at once both mineraly and tannic, but not harshly so. While I feel it would be best enjoyed on its own, it would pare with with a nice grilled lamb or pretty much any grilled meat with a lot of character that would pick up the notes of the wine. Chicken need not apply, although the Heus could get cozy with the bird.     Lastly of course, there is a sweet Garnatxa, because in Catalonia, you're just not officially a winery until you're producing a sweet wine, or so I think. The Sols is an equal blend of red and white Garnatxa from the 75 year old vines that Josep has. And while I'm usually always a Moscatell man when it comes to Catalan sweets, if you put up a bottle of Moscatell and a bottle of this Sols and made me choose just one, I would be very, very unhappy. It's a mighty fine sweet. It's aromatically nutty in the glass and has a pleasant, lingering sweetness, that sticks in the mouth after the swallow and slowly slips away as the perfect close to a meal.     Ah, let's not also forget that La Vinyeta is also putting out an olive oil, which is just as natural a progression for a winery as producing a sweet. It's all from locally grown olives in the Empordà area. Yes, it's aromatically fantastic and of course it tastes great. Toss in a little jamón with some pa amb tomàquet and you've really got yourself the quintessentially perfect Catalan meal.

Sweet Garnatxa in the sun, waiting for deliciousness to happen to it.

Cantallops, Spain. The name for English speakers might sound like, "cantaloupes", but it couldn't be further from that in meaning. If you take it at face value, in Catalan it means, "singing at wolves". But it appears if you dig a bit deeper that the name has an old Latin root to it that means something more along the line of "wolves' rock" which makes much more sense given that the town is built on a massive rock outcropping and they had a big problem with wolves up until the 19th century.     Probably the best thing about this small hamlet sitting on the edge of Pyrenees is that they have two (count 'em) two wineries. One is Masia Serra, which it seems only has its information on the Empordà wines website. It's a gorgeous place, but not often open, which makes it hard to judge the wines as getting a tasting is tricky.     The other winery is Vinyes dels Aspres. Now, this is a winery that we actually encountered back in 2007 at a Spanish wine show in San Francisco. I can't say enough good things about this winery. For starters, the owner, David Molas Albertí is a very enthusiastic guy. He's restarted his family's winery after decades of their not producing wine. With the exception of picking the grape harvest, he does everything himself. He bottles, ages, and sells about 40,000 bottles of wine a year.     With all this exuberance, he is producing some incredibly top quality wines. This is the only winery I've ever found a White Garnatxa. The red version is everywhere in Catalonia, but no one seems to want to make a white wine of it, possibly due to price disparity with the red fetching more than the white. This is a serious error as in white form it is simply unlike any white that I've ever tasted before. Minerally yes, but with a strong, succulent body and light sweetness to it, that makes it great for both white and red drinkers alike. At €12, it's more expensive than the vast majority of wines in the area, but oh, oh so worth it.     There is also a young wine that he makes, which was unfortunately a 2008. I say unfortunately because he says (and I completely agree) that it shouldn't have been released so early. He did so because he sold out of the 2007 long before the holiday season as it was his most reasonable wine at €5.50. Just like in the rest of the world, there is economic crisis in Spain as well and his distributors pushed him in to releasing the 2008 before it was really ready. The problem this caused was that the nose is quite off and needs another three months or more in the bottle to develop. The body however is luscious and smooth, which makes the clumsy nose even more of a shame as many folks might be easily put off by that alone, when it is and will be a great wine.     The other standouts for me were the S'Alou, which is a high-end red made primarily of Garnatxa. It's a hearty, complex red. There is a lot of strawberry in the nose once it opens up properly and the oak in the body is subtle without really being overpowering, yet at the same time strong enough to be appreciated. At €23, it's getting rather pricey for the region, but is a wine that is very much worth every euro.     But the #1 wine that David is producing is the Bac de les Ginesteres. It's a sweet wine make from the raisin grapes late in the harvest. If left to age normally, these Garnatxa raisins would produce a sweet wine just like the lower cost Negre de Panses. But, to punch it up another notch, David places the wine in large, clear glass bottles that he then ages them in the sun of all things. I thought they were a joke when I saw what you see at the top of the article, sitting outside the winery, but no, they were the newest release of the wine aging. Again, at €30, it's a decently high priced sweet wine, but it is transcendent. I have gotten a new appreciation of dessert wines in successive trips to Spain, but this wine, this creation is so above and beyond and Moscatell and Garnatxa sweets that I've had before. The wine is nutty in the glass and like the best sweet Sherries that I've ever had. It ceases to be like a normal sweet wine and reaches some other level that I don't even know what to call it. All I can say is wow. Of course with only 500 bottles a year being produced, it is not easy to come by.     If the wines didn't speak enough for the winery, David is doing other things to make it stand out. For one, there is the website which is a really nicely done site. He understands marketing, which, while something that California vintners know very well, is not something that European winemakers do that much of. He also sources all of his grapes from his own lands. He doesn't buy any grapes from outside growers, which is nearly unheard of due to it limiting your production volume. And of the grapes the he grows, Garnatxa is predominant. Every wine that he produces has Garnatxa in it. He does this because it is a local varietal and he feels a good deal of pride in growing it. He doesn't grow anything like Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay because they aren't local. David wants to be a Catalan winemaker first and foremost and in this he is doing exceeding well. If Cantallops doesn't know it now, he will be their star citizen in the coming years which will replace the current star, who was a farmer that shot six wolves in one year back in 1868. I'm joking,although it might not be far from the truth...