Carles Llarch — ceramics and wine

“Art is in everything that is made with love and with the will to avoid repetition”.

At Font Rubí, in Catalonia’s Alt Penedés area, you will find Carles Llarch’s home and creative studio. From there he designs amphorae and other beautiful ceramic pieces, and since 2015 he also makes wine. His curiosity led him to create the ViTal project, his particular approach to understanding the wine world, together with winemaker Josep Queralt.

Carles talks about creative processes, patience, respect for the times that nature sets, and of course, about the ceramist’s profession. Luckily, ceramics are back to stay and show that in the 21st century, their contributions can still make a difference.

“I decided to study ceramics and set up a studio in an isolated area, a place where ceramics had not been made before. Everyone told me that I was crazy that no one would ever come here in such a remote place. 33 years have passed, and I am still here, happy and working more than ever”.

Carles has worked with many wine projects that one day came to him in search of something special. Wineries such as Recaredo, Mas Candí, Alta Alella or Porcellànic are some of his regulars, and this connection led him to explore the limits of clay. “I began to connect with the world of wine when a winery asked me if I had the possibility of making clay jars for wine. From that moment on, my reaction was to say, sure I can, but what clay do we use for that purpose? There is a great diversity of soils, more than 3000 classes, and we can achieve even more by mixing different types”.

Nobody could give a precise answer to this question, and the commission served as a creative stimulus to give way to long research. “The land has that versatility that wood does not offer; clay and wood are very different concepts. The wineries are clear about what type of wood they want when selecting a barrel if they want oak from one type of tree or another. Still, in ceramics it is not enough to say, I want an amphora, so we began to experiment with different types of mud back in 2010 to see what results they gave us. We spent more than a year doing small-scale tests to achieve a uniform result”.

His curiosity was not limited to the art of creating on clay but led him to ask himself more questions, to want to understand the processes of wine to offer the best recipient.

In this way, ViTal arises. A friendship wine project connected with the winemaker Josep Queralt, a declaration of intentions to the art in the processes that require time and patience to develop fully. “ViTal starts in 2015 after reaching a straightforward conclusion. I asked myself: Carles, would you take your car to a mechanic who doesn’t know how to drive? Obviously not. And then I thought, would you buy amphorae from a man who doesn’t know how to make wine? Neither.

To me, the interesting thing is to get on the other side, you must understand how wines are made, how they work, what peculiarities they have, and from there, move forward. I was very excited about the idea of ​​making wine, not only because of the research process but also because I had a good time. I took it as fun project”.

A ceramist and an oenologist can only start a journey of dialogue through wine and clay if there is fluidity and freedom, if communication leads to a common goal, halfway between curiosity and challenge. “I spoke with Josep, and I realized that not only did I need a person to act as a winemaker in the strict sense of the word, but I also needed a person who could advise me and explain in detail, I couldn’t be a mere viewer. Many very great winemakers make technological wines because they have to always look for a certain profile. Still, the winemaker who does not have to always be in search of these parameters can feel more liberated, so we decided that we would make a wine that would express itself in its maximum possible naturalness, without adding any additives, without using sulfites, without having strict temperature controls; a wine more focused on intuition, with which to follow the sensations, but that in turn, these sensations have a logical explanation.

I asked myself: is it interesting to always be looking for a profile? Let’s get out of this. We wanted to go back to the Greeks and the Phoenicians’ wine, the one they made when there were no cold systems or densities, but rather throwing sensations in”.

Its 100% Macabeu wine comes from the lands of Josep Queralt, from some vineyards that his father planted at the time and that are now between 50 and 60 years old. “We had no intention of commercializing the wine, all we wanted was to have fun, enjoy it, and be able to share it with friends and family so that the people who came to visit the workshop could have a glass of wine while we explained how we made it, and its development within the amphoras. We found out that people wanted to buy from us, so we decided that if we were going to put it up for sale, it would be fair to regularize our situation so as not to make dishonest competition with the winemakers”.

Their production is small, it doesn’t reach 2000 bottles per vintage, “we don’t have machinery, we do everything very manually, and that is how we want to enjoy it. We will not make huge productions because we do not have the means, and it is not our purpose either. We recently bottled a Parellada that has spent 4 months in amphora; it is the first time we have a wine finished quickly. Right now we have an amphora full of Macabeu, and we are waiting for it to burn sugars and finish”.

Carles’ philosophy towards wine is clear: he conceives it through what nature marks, and he feels it as the future in this area. Although if we talk about prejudices towards natural wines, he is also very clear about why there are so many: “I think that at the beginning when these natural wines were released on the market, they often came with very high volatiles and defects, and when you are used to a “clean” type of wine if you taste others with peculiarities, they can cause your rejection. However, we have to keep in mind that natural wine doesn’t have to have defects. Many good natural wines are currently being made without defects or negative notes. A well-integrated volatile can provide significant strength to it; it can give it a hint of freshness, and it can make it bigger in the mouth, for example”.

You have to like the wine the first time you taste it, it’s crucial. You don’t sell wine because it is natural or because it is a wine that has been put I do not know where you sell wine after tasting it, you can say that it is spectacular, and then you reach out for an explanation of how it is made. I think that’s what we should look at: what are you looking for in a wine?

What I’m looking for is to be surprised. If I have to buy a product with a profile that is repeated year after year, it will make me suffer a little because I will think, okay, here are some great winemakers behind, but I understand that there is little real expression of vintages, of terroir, and that does not excite me much.

Society seeks to go more towards nature, but many people claim that they want the wine to taste like wine. But what is the taste of wine? Possibly the taste of wine does not exist, it has more to do with the characteristics of each variety, and each way of elaboration has its own notes. I believe that if consumers really love wine, they will gradually become more aware that the normal is to find wines that don’t repeat themselves, but that tends to change and evolve”.

The consumer is changing and becoming aware of what they drink. It is also a time of revolution for the front house teams, especially for the sommelier, whose role is essential for presenting wines with certain characteristics beyond the preset. “A sommelier is a person who must know how to do magic, and who must always surprise their client. This surprise is closely linked to everything behind the wine itself, and it’s connected to the people in the wine world: the producer, the ceramist, the journalist. The sommelier has to know exactly what wine profiles are in the cellar and understand the vintages’ variability in the wines and tell about them. A somm has to play with all this and make a story out of it.

When the sommelier puts wine on the table, she/he interprets what this client will eat, what that client is like. Wine is not only associated with a type of food but also with a type of person, that’s why the sommelier has to do a very personalized job”.

Wine is life when it involves people, and if it also acts as a way for artistic expression, its process is complete. In the end, winemaking is a creative activity, as are ceramics. “Art, after all, is an individual interpretation of the environment. Art is in everything that is done with love and with the will to avoid repetition.

When you get stuck repeating a product endlessly, you become a mere producer; your feelings are not involved enough with the final result. When your emotions get involved, you evolve and change every day; all this has to be reflected in what you do, it is a mirror of who you are, how you think, what you do and the environment, it is your vision of the world”.

A profession as antique as that of ceramics requires a significant change of pace, in which speed is not always the best ally. “In general, we lack the culture and knowledge of what professions are. In the past, processes were valued for their results. Respect for the times that nature rules need to come back; produce less and enjoy more. In the end, what motivates me is that every day when I wake up, I have new challenges in my hands.

Repeating what we already know without changing anything would make life very boring. Sometimes we think that we come into the world to earn money. We need it, yes, but we have to find the balance, that’s what interests me the most”. There is a need to cultivate patience and beauty. Daily, through all that we do.

Cheers, Carles.

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