Vins Nus

The Architect Who Strips Wine Bare

When Alfredo Arribas returned to Catalonia for a building project in the late 1990s, he discovered Priorat. The multidisciplinary architect from Barcelona first bought the Clos del Portal estate and went in search of grapes for his top wine "Tros de Clos". In the cooler north-west of Montsant he came across something unexpected: vineyards at over 700 metres, surrounded by the nature park, where the nights stay cool even in high summer. This altitude changed his idea of Catalan wine. Up here, where acidity is preserved naturally, he needed no tricks. No oak for structure, no sulphur for stability. Just amphorae, patience and trust in the grapes. And so in 2011 Vins Nus was born – wines defined more by what is left out than by what is added.

SiurAlta: Where the Air Grows Thin

The name gives away the philosophy: SiurAlta, from Serra Alta, the high mountains. The vineyards near Cornudella del Montsant and Siurana lie between 700 and 820 metres, on north-facing yellow clay soils. Old Grenache vines grow here as traditional gobelet bush vines, some of them more than 40 years old. Yields are tiny and concentration enormous, yet the altitude keeps everything fresh and lively. The Siuralta Orange shows what this site can do: Grenache Gris, a grey-orange mutation of red Grenache, is aged in amphorae after a short maceration. The result is terpenic, with an almost oxidative touch, and has an acidity reminiscent of mountain air. The same goes for the Siuralta Gris: weightless at just 13% alcohol, with a pH of 3.0 – figures you would sooner expect in Burgundy.

InStabile: Wines in Free Fall

While the SiurAlta wines pursue precision of terroir, the InStabile series is the exact opposite: total freedom. No thinking in vintages, no varietal purism, no rules except one – no sulphur, ever. The wines bear numbers instead of names, with changing Latin subtitles: "In Albis", "Mea Culpa", "Alter Ego". The Instabile Brisat No. 3 In Albis, for instance, is made from white grapes fermented on their skins – "brisat" means skin contact. The result is a wine that keeps changing for hours after the bottle has been opened. Mobile, shape-shifting, like the Calder sculptures on the label. If you are looking for stability, you have come to the wrong place. If you want vibrant generosity, you are in exactly the right one.

Nakedness as a Principle

Vins Nus makes wines with more absences than additions: practically no oak, no extraction, no added alcohol, no manipulated colour. What remains is the essence of Montsant – altitude, clay, old vines, cool nights. The wines are not a copy of neighbouring Priorat but its antithesis: lightness instead of power, acidity instead of tannin, movement instead of monumentality. For Alfredo Arribas, this brings things full circle. The architect who designs spaces has learned, in wine, to leave things out rather than add them. The "naked wines" show what happens when you trust the terroir – and nobody else.