When winemaker Pere Calafat comes back from his vineyards, scattered on the edge of town, he doesn’t leave a carbon footprint. Nor does he when he leaves the winery or celler to go home. He lives just upstairs on Santa Maria’s Plaça Nova. Whether they’re red, white or rosé, wines don’t get much greener than this. As far as possible, Pere keeps things small and traditional and the wine is organic.
“Basically that means that we don’t use chemical products or fertilisers,” he explains. “This does mean we’re more labour intensive – we need to do more weeding. And we control pests using traditional products, with sulphur and so on.
The family-run winery was founded in 1981 by Jaume Calafat, and his two sons Pere and Bernat have kept things going. It’s a relatively small winery, with just over 12 hectares in production and the grapes grown, mainly, are local varieties such as manto negre – a fruit rich in tanins – callet and premsal blanc.
The grapes are picked by hand, explains Pere. “This isn’t just about being ecological, though. Doing it by hand ensures we pick only the best grapes. And we pick just what we can manage to process on a given day, so we don’t have huge refrigeration requirements. In general, we pick three times each harvest.”
The wines are aged in American or French oak. Which barrel to use depends on the wine. The much-lauded Carmesí, for instance, spends just over a year in American oak barrels.
“Every year the wine is going to be slightly different. The only thing you can really control is the barrel. So by always ageing a certain wine in, say, American oak, you’re guaranteeing some continuity. The customer appreciates that.”
So do the critics. The prestigious Guía Peñin–Spain’s most demanding wine guide–awarded 2004’s Carmesí 90 points (out of 100). The house vermut won the Ecological Product of the Year in 2019, while other stars include the rich ruby Buc, a well-rounded red with a nose of wild fruit and caramel and the extraordinary and complex crianza, J.
With so many rave reviews, demand for the wines is growing, both in Spain and abroad.
“There’s another point in favour of being ecological and organic: it can be a selling point these days, especially in Germany and Japan.”
Pere is wary, though, of the winery growing too fast. “Most wineries are big bodegas with very little direct control over what goes on on the vineyard. But we like to see ourselves as farmers with a bodega.”
The Jaume Puntiró celler is well worth a visit. While planting a few trees might help limit our carbon footprints and reducing our air-miles certainly will, a visit to this bodega in Santa Maria for a glass of decent red is a painless way of doing one’s bit, too. You can even get there by train and, after sampling the delights on offer, arrive safely home.
