‘There Are, Increasingly, Two Worlds Of Wine: The Fine-wine Machine... And Then The Rest'

A few months ago, I stood in a steep vineyard chiselled out of the acid schists of the Cap de Creus. this jagged headland, stabbing the Mediterranean in Spain's far northwest, forms part of Do empordà; it’s just a few miles from France's Banyuls, but still more exposed. the icy tramontane wind cut through my layers of clothing with dismissive ease. ‘they’re very clever,’ said Didac Soto of mas Estela. ‘when they hear the first bang, they go.’ he was talking about the wild boar, alert to the crack of a rifle; when the fruit is ripe, he has to climb the mountains to wire the entire vineyard against them, and patrol it every morning. But that, I learned with mounting incredulity, is just the start.

- Andrew Jefford

I’ve never visited a vineyard that’s as difficult to reach as mas Estela: there’s no road up as such, just a track. when Didac’s parents, Didier soto and núria Dalmau, first arrived with their sons at the farmhouse, it was a ruin, uninhabited for at least 30 years. the core of the house had 10th-century origins, and Didier, an architect by profession, set about slowly restoring it. the plan was to make wine in this very difficult place. ‘we didn’t know how to make wine, but our grandfathers had done it,’ says Didac; ‘it was in our DNA.’ the locals gave them six months.