ViTalCarles Llarch & Josep Queralt
Josep Queralt, winemaker, and Carles Llarch, ceramicist from Vilafranca del Penedès, join forces in Font-Rubí to make minimal-intervention wines in handmade clay jars. A project where the vessel is as important as the content: Llarch designs and fires the jars in his workshop in Mata Vella, selecting specific clays for each wine. Native Penedès varieties —Sumoll, Macabeo, Parellada, Xarel·lo, Montonega—, no additives, no filtration, no sulphites.
ViTal's vineyards are in Font-Rubí, a municipality of the Alt Penedès where the vine has been rooted for millennia on the slopes of the Prelitoral range. Carles Llarch's workshop in Mata Vella —in the heart of Font-Rubí— is both cradle of the jars and winery: the clay pieces are made here and the wines rest here during ageing. A unique symbiosis between artisan craft and terroir viticulture.
- Handmade clay jars by Carles Llarch: white clay for white and orange wines (avoids earthy notes), more porous clay for reds
- Hand harvest and grape selection in the vineyard
- Spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts, no inoculation
- Ageing in clay jar: time and clay act as natural stabilisers, taming astringency without additives
- No oenological additives, no filtration, no fining, no added sulphites
- Maceration varies by variety and wine: from short maceration for whites to months in jar for the Sumoll
ViTal is what happens when a ceramicist with 38 years of craft and a winemaker decide that the vessel is not a detail but the heart of the wine. Carles Llarch has been making clay jars since 1987 for producers all over the Penedès and beyond; with Josep Queralt he has found the project of his own where his pieces and his philosophy are fully expressed. Each jar is a prototype designed for a specific wine: Llarch chooses the clay, adjusts the porosity and fires it in the wood-fired kiln before the wine goes in. The result: living, textured wines that carry the imprint of the clay and the earth of Font-Rubí.
Font-Rubí is a municipality of the Alt Penedès surrounded by vineyards, at the foot of the Catalan Prelitoral range. A land of contrasts: hot, dry summers, cold winters and cool nights that lengthen ripening and preserve the natural acidity of the varieties. The Alt Penedès is the founding territory of Catalan wine, with varieties such as Macabeo, Parellada, Xarel·lo and Sumoll finding their purest expressions here. Font-Rubí, away from the large industrial wineries of the DO Penedès, has become a refuge for artisan producers who work the terroir without intermediaries.
The collection at Terroir Radical
To Vi, or not to bi
The Shakespearean question reformulated for a project that puts the word 'vino' at the centre. To Vi, or not to bi —to drink or not to drink— is the dilemma ViTal resolves emphatically: a Font-Rubí wine aged in a clay jar, without additives or filtration, that carries the identity of the terroir without any intermediary.
ViTal
The wine that carries the project's name. ViTal is the distilled expression of everything Josep Queralt and Carles Llarch do in Mata Vella: wine and earth as ways of life. Aged in a handmade clay jar, without additives, without filtration.
Editorial note
I have known Josep Queralt since my beginnings in the wine world. He was always a key piece in my training, but above all in my curiosity to learn something new every day, and he was always there to teach me. I met Carles later through Josep: an artist to the core. Knowing how to work clay to make the jars he makes for so many winemakers, professionals and enthusiasts of natural and minimal-intervention wine... it was inevitable to have a small part of his project at TR. And for me, a tremendous satisfaction.
— Terroir Radical