Philosophy & Winemaking
Philosophy
Alta Alella is an organic winery which aims at keeping a constant look towards the future.
Owner Josep Maria Pujol Busquets and several team members are qualified winemakers. They work with micro-vinifications for each of the numerous grape varieties grown on the estate, producing up to 47 different wine batches each year.
Fleeing from standardization, year after year, Pujol-Busquets and Alta Alella’s aim is to produce transparent wines, which reflect the soil from the estate and their vintage characteristics, or in other words, wines which show the weather, geological and harvest conditions from each year while being tasted.
Pujol-Busquets proudly says: “At Alta Alella, we constantly want to improve and delve deeper into organic agriculture.”
Winemaking
Alta Alella winery was specifically designed for micro-vinifications which allows to grow plots with different grape varieties and harvest each one at its optimal ripeness.
The plots are then fermented separately at a controlled temperature in stainless steel tanks or in new or old (two or three years old) American or French oak barrels, depending on the type of wine.
The harvest is carried out 100% by hand in small boxes, and the cellar is designed to work by gravity alone, to avoid pumping.
Maceration may last for three to four weeks depending on the variety, plot and year.
Red wines macerate by means of the submerged cap technique, keeping the skins and pulp below the level of wine to favour extraction.
Malolactic fermentation is undergone in the barrel to optimize the stabilization of colour and other polyphenolic elements.
White and base wines for cava sparkling wines do not complete the whole malolactic fermentation process to preserve acidity and maintain maximum freshness.
For Cava wines, a second fermentation is produced in the bottle to create the necessary effervescence (the bubbles basically). These then age on the lees in the cellar between 20 and 60 months depending on the cuvee in the cellar. The cava is placed on the market right after being disgorged.
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