Josep Grau Viticultor

Josep Grau Viticultor is the personal project of Josep Grau Closa, today a winegrower, yesterday a broker. "If life slows you down, stop and listen", says Josep, it will make you establish new priorities, weigh up the importance of your values, focus your objectives and learn to live it, not use it. 

This is what Josep does in the land of Montsant, betting on an agricultural and oenological adventure in which everything requires effort, passion and a lot of enthusiasm. 

It could have been in another land, on another soil, with another culture and less effort, but then Josep Grau's story would have been different and his wines would not express that character and strength.

During his childhood and youth, his life revolved around two opposing worlds: one, in Barcelona, where he simply studied and where his father spent his working week as a worker in a large company, while his mother was a model housewife, with a special taste for gastronomy. 

His other world was rural, just as his parents had been in the past. Spending weekends and holidays in the countryside, he realised that there, everything was transformed and perceived differently. From an early age, he began to wonder why his whole life was not spent there. 

They had a small estate in Sant Martí de Sesgueioles (province of Barcelona) which they called a vineyard even though it was planted with wheat because before phylloxera it had been covered with vines. 

One day, Josep discovered the Priorat, a climate similar to that of the land of his childhood, but with a much more tortuous terrain, and he discovered that not everyone had given up there, that some had planted vines again after phylloxera. He would not move.

Today, the winery of Josep Grau (oenologist and owner) is a family project located in the municipality of Marçà in the Montsant DO. It currently produces 100,000 bottles and manages 26 hectares of vineyards with a great diversity of soils. 

All the work is done by hand, from pruning to harvesting, and the viticulture is organic and free of herbicides and pesticides. The varieties grown are Garnacha Blanca, Garnacha Tinta, Carignan, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. One of the basic characteristics of Josep Grau's wines is that they are not corrected, they are as they are obtained from the vineyard. 

From the beginning of his career, he has worked with indigenous yeasts and minimum levels of sulphur dioxide, to simply ensure the correct protection of the wine. The main objective is to bring the fruit of the vineyard with all its natural characteristics to the bottle, to reflect the Montsant and the vintage, with complexity and personality, with fresh wines, with structure and good balance.