Enric Soler

From sommelier to winegrower

Spain's best sommelier in 1997: a title that opens doors. Enric Soler ran a renowned sommelier school in Barcelona, tasted the world's great wines and knew exactly what he was missing: a vineyard of his own. When his grandfather died in 2004, he faced a choice between selling the inherited parcel or farming it himself. He chose to take the risk. In Sabanell, a hamlet in the Alt Penedès near Barcelona, he took over Cal Raspallet, a Catalan farmhouse from the late 19th century. In the cellar beneath it there was room for his first barrels. The Xarel·lo vines his grandfather had planted in 1945 were almost 80 years old, and Enric recognised their potential. A grape that usually disappears into Cava or is masked by too much oak was finally to show what it is capable of.

Vinya dels Taus: the vineyard of the moles

The name of his flagship wine tells a story: Vinya dels Taus means "vineyard of the molehills" in Catalan. Anyone who visits the parcel immediately understands why; at certain times of year the ground is covered in them. The old vines are unharmed. Their roots reach deep into the calcareous, sandy subsoil, where they find water and nutrients even in dry years. This vineyard covers just 0.89 hectares and offers a spectacular backdrop of the jagged Montserrat mountains. The Mediterranean, a climatic buffer, lies only 30 kilometres away. Cool nights at 400 metres preserve acidity, an advantage that Familia Nin-Ortiz in the nearby Priorat also knows how to exploit. That is no coincidence: Ester Nin, who is behind Clos Erasmus and her own estate, has advised Enric on winemaking for years.

Biodynamics and Burgundian ambitions

Enric has farmed biodynamically since 2005, and the ladybirds on the gnarled vines are no accident. The harvest is done by hand into 15-kilo crates, and fermentation is spontaneous with wild yeasts, without any adjustments to the must. In the cellar he experiments with different vessels: concrete eggs for the Improvisació, which also gets some skin contact, used oak barrels for freshness, and new 300-litre barrels for structure. The Nun Vinya dels Taus marked a turning point for still Xarel·lo in the Penedès: Burgundian ambition, oak ageing with cellaring potential and rapid success among sommeliers. The Espenyalluchs does without the concrete egg and aims for a purer, mineral mouthfeel: almost salty, cool, with a depth that needs time.

Small, precise, uncompromising

From an initial single wine and 2,000 bottles, production has grown to four wines and a good 10,000 bottles, which more than two decades later still makes it a micro-estate. The wines regularly sell out quickly, and the scores in Wine Advocate and Guía Peñín are high. Anyone who lets a bottle of Nun age in the cellar will be rewarded with complexity and freshness that unfold over the years. Enric Soler has proved what he suspected as a sommelier: Xarel·lo can hold its own with the best white wines in the world.