Wine & Spirits - August 2019 - 34

he foosball tables in Catalonia are different from all other foosball tables in
the world. First off, the plastic players
have hands, one extended forward and
the other back, which gives them a more
dynamic aspect, as if they were really
running. And then they have two feet,
which allows for more control of the ball.
Miguel Torres points out both details while we play a couple
of games on the patio of his house, in the small town of Pacs,
in Penedès
Torres takes this "futbolín" seriously. "In college, I put
many courses at risk by playing so much," he confesses, and
then warns me against what I just did: I'm down 3-0 and, in
my desperation, I've been spinning the rods as if possessed.
It's considered an amateur move; in fact, in the professional
circuits of foosball (yes, there are professional foosballers),
it's against the rules.
Even with my illegal crazy turns, the two games end in
a massacre-both 5 to 1 in his favor, without him showing
the least sign of mercy. And he apologizes for having lost the
skill he had in college.
Since taking over Bodegas Torres in 2012, he's been focused
on other interests, including a research project started by his
34

WINE & SPIRITS

AUGUST 2019

(ABOVE LEFT) MIGUEL
TORRES AT HIS NEW
PRIORAT VINEYARD,
PLANTED WITH LOCAL
VARIETIES.

father, Don Miguel. Some 30 years ago, Don Miguel ran a
series of ads in local newspapers, asking vine growers if they
had seen vines in their vineyards that they did not know-
that were different from the rest. The answers soon arrived.
And they arrived by the hundreds.
Torres's team began to investigate case by case. When
the DNA analyses they ran did not turn up a match to any
other known vine, they reproduced that particular vine, first
obtaining cells from the plant material to reproduce the vine
in vitro, and later planting a block in the vineyard. "It took
us about fifteen years to obtain grapes that we could vinify
from each one of those vines," Torres says.
As we drive across town to Bodega Waltraud, the winery
Torres built to produce the family's top wines, he continues
to describe the project. After three decades of research, Torres and his team have found 54 indigenous varieties. "The
viticulture in Catalonia arrived with the Phoenicians, 2,700
years ago," he says. "In all that time, it is probable that there
have been mutations and natural crosses. What we have
done has been to recover that material already present in
nature-many of the vines were growing in the wild. Catalonia, together with Galicia, has the richest and most diverse
varietal garden in all of Spain," Torres claims, as we enter the
tasting room, a large space with a wall of windows that look
out onto the winery gardens.
Torres pours a glass of Grans Muralles, a wine the family has made since 1996, the first of their wines to include
varieties from this research. In vintages since, the red blend
has included cariñena, garnacha and monastrell, as well as
querol and garro, two varieties that the winery rescued from
oblivion, both planted in Conca de Barberà, about 50 miles
west of Barcelona.
Torres's recovery work has spread throughout Catalonia, and today, in addition to Grans
Muralles, they are planning a new line
tentatively called Ancestral Vines. This
line will present the individual varieties
that have given the best results-"the
ones with better color, more fruit flavors and better acidity," he says.
Torres pours me a taste of forcada,
a white wine with clear notes of white
flowers, and severe acidity. There's a
light red moneu, which fills the mouth
with soft, elegant tannins. And pirene,
a red variety that gives a deliciously
refreshing wine, generous in its tart
red fruit. None of these had known
identities. "We reviewed old viticulture
books, in case we found similarities,
but the descriptions were too vague,
so we decided to name them with the
place where we discovered them," he
explains. Moneu, for instance, comes from the Costes del
Moneu in Penedès.
According to Torres, Catalonia began to lose its varietal
richness with the arrival of phylloxera, toward the end of the
19th century. The recovery of the vineyards coincided with
the beginning of the Cava boom in the early years of the
20th century. As Catalàn sparkling wine developed, producers concentrated on three white varieties-xarello, parellada

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