Can Branques i Ca la Jane

Old Xarel·lo on limestone

It is almost all Xarel·lo, Penedès’ signature grape, with a few vines of Garró, an old red variety that had nearly disappeared. The soil is limestone: water drains away and the roots have to dig deep to find it.

Vines over fifty years old give little fruit, but fruit with something to say: small berries, thick skins and acidity that holds. So I don’t push them.

How I farm it

Biodynamically, with no synthetic products at all. I protect the vines with horsetail and nettle, trichoderma that I grow myself, and preparations 500 and 501. For two years now I have used almost no copper or sulphur.

I prune in winter, remove extra shoots by hand in spring and harvest by hand, in small crates, with friends. Every treatment goes into the field notebook: what, how much and why.

Field notebook →

What it makes

Jane: a Xarel·lo fermented 12 days on its skins (brisat), using only free-run juice. Jane, my Cavalier, gives the wine its name; on the 2025 labels Hugo Tolker-Nielsen drew her in six scenes.

SOCA: the Xarel·lo and Garró from here join Merlot and Moneu in an ancestral-method rosé, with bubbles made in the bottle.

Come and see it

It is the first stop on the vineyard visit and vermouth: we meet here at 11:30, walk among the old vines and taste. Then we drive on to Vinya del Toni.