Alta Alella
The Alta Alella estate, owned by the Pujol-Busquets Guilléns family, is located north of Barcelona in the Alella hills, next to the Serralada de Marina Natural Park. Josep Maria and Cristina founded their winery on the grounds of Can Genís in 1991, and now the couple's daughters, Mireia and Georgina, who grew up on the farm, manage the farm. Right from the planting of the orchards, all orchard work has followed organic principles, and only grapes from our own orchards are used in winemaking.
The farm's paddocks open like an amphitheater towards the Mediterranean Sea, and the paddocks' soil consists of calcareous, granitic sand, which is locally called sauló. The orchards extend to a height of 250 meters above sea level, and the coolness and freshness brought by the sea can be tasted in the farm's grapes. The estate focuses on producing wines that reflect the characteristics of the region and vintage, which are not masked in the cellar with sugar or excessive oak. Sparkling wines cover 75% of the farm's production and the rest consists of other wines. Most of the wines are named after Alta Alella, but a more experimental series of wines, in the production of which, for example, the use of sulfur dioxide is minimal, is known as Celler de les Aus.
The farm's nursery area covers 33 hectares around the winery itself, in addition to which there are nursery areas here and there around the town of Alella. In total, the cultivated area is 70 hectares, of which 20 hectares are rented and the rest of the orchards are owned by the farm. All grapes are picked by hand into small collection containers and carefully selected before processing. Instead of a basket press, the farm uses three pneumatic presses, which allow the juices to be accurately separated. Most of the wines are stored in steel tanks, but the cellar also contains amphorae made of sauló, egg-shaped cement vessels and French oak barrels. In total, more than twenty different wines are produced. All the farm's wines are made without dosage. Information about the recorking of the wines is published on the back labels of the bottles for the sake of transparency.
Alta Alella produced its first completely sulfite-free sparkling wines already in 2012. The naturally occurring sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide during fermentation protect the wines sufficiently. Alta Alella is also one of the few cava producers that produces Cava de Paraje wines, known as the crown jewel of the category, whose production criteria are extremely strict and availability is therefore limited. In addition, Alta Ale has a producer whose entire range is Elaborador Integral classified. This guarantees that the entire production process takes place on the farm by the producer himself.
The bottles used for the wines of Celler de les Aus are recycled, just as the bottles of Alta Alella are made from recycled glass. When you visit the farm, you will notice how multidimensionally environmental friendliness is taken into account in the farm's production. Alta Ale is definitely one of the leading stars of ecological and high-quality cava production.
The farm's annual production is around 400,000 bottles. The producer has an organic certificate.
