Gloria, Oriol, Berta aka Els Jelipins (part 1)

In the chapter, My Date With Bob, Mr. Parker and I had one or two rough spots. Oddly enough, Spain was an issue in both of them. Parker voiced his emphatic belief that Spain was the hot bed of originality because it was reclaiming many of lost vines and turning them into wines. He maintained that indiginous grapes were being celebrated all around the country. To me, most of Spain had lost it's soul. Now, to me, if something like Mencia is being tarted up to look like Syrah, that isn't saving much. Yes, it is so much better than grafting over to Merlot, if the right savior comes around to kiss the wood and make it blossom into its true self. But, I'm more interested in vine savers who are trying to delve into the mysteries of the grape, not to make it sing out of its range. I met an astrologer once (don't ask) who charmed me when he talked about the planets as if they were his best friends, when Pluto was squishing a Mars he felt the pain. The man transmorgophied planets, and I have come to see that the wines that I love the best come from vignerons who have the same relationship with the vines, such as Clos Roche Blanche and the 'old ladies' of Cot. The day after the conference, I waited in a parking lot under the shadow of the dramatic Monserrat for Oriol to pick me up. Oriol, with Gloria and the impossibly precocious Berta, comprise the winery, Els Jelipins of the Penedès. I climbed in and in ten minutes we were at the very vineyard I had noticed for its oddity the day before. "Wow!" I said. "Fantastic! I was wondering what these were, and they're yours?" These vines looked like spindly sumac trees. Turns out they are Sumoll, a strangely configured bunch of grapes, that barely is given a sentence in the last Oxford Companion. These are eighty years old and even though it's a grape that is native to the area, it is blocked from the DO, so table wine is what they make, pretty expensive stuff in the hands of Gloria & Oriol. So first a visit with Oriol.