With time, everything comes more sharply into focus. You begin to see things more deeply, transcending the purely physical and penetrating through to the very essence of things. Pleasure no longer lies in mere observation. You must dig ever deeper, explore, strip away the superfluous until only the essential, the genuine, remains. An exercise in concentration, in pure asceticism, that leads to the truth.
With the experience of more than twenty annual harvests since 2004, Enric Soler has developed a profound capacity for reflection. An internal dialogue, a contemplative and sensitive journey through the medium of wine.
Sommelier turned winemaker, some twenty years ago he was one of the first of a generation of visionaries from the Penedès who instinctively sensed the potential of the local Xarel·lo grape variety. It became an obsession, a passion that led him to produce still Penedès wines that are suitable for ageing. White wines only. Combining his passion with a great deal of hard work, he is devoted to producing wines that align with his own vision and remain unaffected by fashions and trends. That way he feels at ease, remaining true to his own understanding of the wine-making process and, above all, enjoying that process.
Xarel·lo has always been the starting point and the goal. He was aware of its virtues before he began making it. And later he could not help but fall in love with it. Now, twenty years on, he doesn’t want to hear about anything else.
A living, artistic sanctuary, designed not just to protect but also to nurture, to provide a place in which the creative instinct can find both space and time. A place in which original essence can once again be revealed, stripped of all artifice and given free rein. In this space, creativity ceases to be a mere reactive response and instead becomes true reflection, with an authenticity that can only stem from the quiet confidence of someone who is able to ask questions of themselves.
The small hamlet of Sabanell comprises around a dozen houses. Cal Raspallet, a farmhouse on the outer edges of the hamlet, is where Enric and Mercè live their lives through wine. House and cellar are inseparable. They have taken time to connect with this particular landscape and understand its language, creating a working space in which they can both listen and be heard. Their attachment to the warmth of this environment has led them to find the most effective way of giving voice to its beauty.
A wine’s natural habitat is formed from both the surrounding bioenergies and the physical landscape in which it exists. For wine, location is and always will be an essential and defining factor.
Wine spends more time in the cellar than the grapes spend on the vine, and it is therefore left quietly to rest. One must know how to wait.
