In hindsight it was a good decision not to build our romantic winery in the middle of our vineyards. Since my last blog post a couple of months ago, the construction costs have rocketed due to the Covid pandemic. We now feel that deciding to go with our “budget solution” of renovating a warehouse and transforming it into a modern winery was exactly the right thing to do.
So we’ve had an intense period of planning the winery, obtaining quotes for all the equipment and negotiating with building companies. The deadline to apply for EU funding for the project was 31 January 2022. We’ve had an extremely tight schedule for this project, about one month of effective work because of the time lost over the Christmas period. The application has now been submitted. 😊
It will be a modern winery with the best possible equipment to make superior quality wines. The facility will have the capacity for about 75,000 bottles and be certified organic. Bell Cros is aiming to be one of the top five wineries in DO Montsant. This is one of the steps on the journey towards that goal.
We have made several natural wines as part of our “ONE OFF” line of wines that we produce just once in limited quantities. Combining natural wine production with conventional wine production in the same area is not a particularly good idea. There is always a risk of contamination in the winery where natural wines are made because no Sulphites are added during the production process. This got us thinking why not set up a winery for natural wines in one of the many small buildings that are scattered around our vineyards. So as we were frantically trying to get our application for EU funding ready to send in, we started up a small side project. We are going to lovingly renovate one of the old buildings out in the vineyards and turn it into a small Boutique Winery for natural wines. It is a small building, about 30 square metres of floor space, and we’ll be producing about 5,000 bottles of wine there. In some magical way, we’ve managed to conjure up the energy to get this really fun and exciting project off the ground.
Our goal is to have the main winery fully up and running in time for the harvest in September/October 2022. We are on a tight schedule with a lot of hard work ahead of us. So to help us achieve this goal, we have employed Albert Peris Barceló who has more than 20 years of experience of wine production. Albert previously worked at Terroir Al Límit and Mas Martinet in Priorat. He will be responsible for the new winery and otherwise ensure that our operations run smoothly.
