Penedes — Spain

Ferran Lacruz is a young winemaker who farms 8 hectares of vines in Sant Marti Sarroca, a village in Catalonia's Penedès wine region. His dream is to show the world all the good that Xarel.lo has to offer, beyond its common use as a mass-production grape for bulk cava. Because of this, many people in the village viewed him as an outsider, a refugee. By 2018 he launched his first project & vintage 'Bodega Clandestina' when he was only 24 years old. He farms organically, hand-harvesting his grapes without using any additives, filters, or fining. In the cellar, Ferran primarily uses dame-jeannes (demijohns) and amphorae, firmly believing that these methods yield the purest expression of the wine.