Photo courtesy of Raül Bobet
5 Questions for
Raül Bobet of Castell d’Encus and Ferrer Bobet Interview by Gary Hewitt, DipWSET, CWE, FWS, Sommelier Raül Bobet is an engineer, winegrower, and philosopher. After working with renowned Catalan winery Familia Torres as a technical director and later as CEO, he decided to strike out on his own. Using a careful, scientific approach, he looked for varied terroir to provide grapes with a broad range of characteristics. First, he established Castell d’Encus in Pallars, a high-altitude sub-zone of the diverse appellation Costers del Segre, nestled in the Spanish Pyrenees. There, on terrain covered by underbrush, he discovered shallow stone basins carved and used for winemaking by 12th-century monks. Today, Raül blends grapes from these “gravity rock fermenters” with those fermented using contemporary techniques to create his wines. Second, with partner Sergi Ferrer-Salat, he established Ferrer Bobet in the relatively high, steeply sloped Porrera region of Priorat, Catalan’s most prestigious appellation.
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1
What do you know about the monks who first planted in the Pallars area in the 12th century?
The monks that acquired the land were warriors—they were the Knights of Malta, the army of the Pope of Rome, who took part in the Crusades. And when they asked for land, they always wanted two things: for it to have a religious or spiritual history and water and resources to make wine. They always chose places that were spectacular in some regard. We know exactly what they were doing in the 12th century because they wrote it all down: they planted in the mountains, never in the valley; they used gravity rock fermenters; and they wrote about the varieties they were