Description
In El Penedès, past the vineyards and cellars overflowing with Cava, lies a dirt road leading towards the miniscule town of Font-rubí. If you look closely, at the top of the hill you may see Glòria Garriga’s girlhood dream that began many years ago. She knew as a child that she would live on that hill in connection with the earth, the sky, and all of the beautiful creatures in between. Years later this dream has brought us Els Jelipins.
Upon realizing they did not believe in the extreme viticulture techniques that they saw all around them, Els Jelipins began a search in 2001 that led them to the very special plots of El Penedès Superior. Today Glòria and her lovely daughter Berta are making real, natural wine in the surroundings that they love.
All of Els Jelipins wines are made with native yeasts, without temperature control, fining, or filtration. Open top barrel fermentation and some wax-lined oval amphorae are used along with lengthy aging in big barrels.
Each bottle is hand painted, showing the symbolic heart of Els Jelipins. Although the heart changes with every vintage, the love within the bottle does not. If you try one of their wines, you will for a moment be part of a dream, and that is exactly what Glòria and Berta want.
Els Jelipins Red (Vi de Taula Negre):
Vineyard: 80-year-old vines on alluvial soil with slate, granite, and quartz.
Varieties: Sumoll
Cellar: Long spontaneous fermentation at naturally low temperature, followed by at least 30 months of aging in 10 hl foudres (Garbelotto, Slavonic oak) and French 500-liter demi-muid. No fining or filtration, no sulfur added. 2000 bottles produced.
Personality: Notable for its balance. The nose is intense, with kirsch aromas, clean and well-defined red fruit, accompanied by a subtle hint of balsam and flowers and a suggestion of cacao and minerals. The taste starts straight, vertical, and very crystalline, with medium weight, warm and juicy and tremendously clean, with a silky tannic structure, and the end is exceptionally long, voluptuous, and fresh.
