Joan Ramón Escoda

Joan Ramón Escoda is, above all else, a good buddy. He embodies much of what I love about the energetic natural wine community of Catalonia. While many of his neighbors (think Priorat and Cava) have capitulated to the globalized homogeneity ushered in by point systems, multinational corporate brands, and the American addiction to cane sugar, Joan has followed a different path. He farms organically, eschews additives, and makes a puzzling and delicious collection of cuvées that have a clear and vivacious personality. But Joan is not a peasant stubbornly resisting the march of progress. While many of our favorite winemakers do just this (and we love them for it!), Joan has blazed a modernist path of subversion, relishing the ways in which the contradictions and connections of our historical moment create the conditions for a creative avant-garde. So, for instance, Joan grafted Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley onto a plot of old vines planted on limestone, and ferments it on the skins in a mix of steel, Slovenian oak and qvevri. There is nothing traditional about the recipe, but the ripe mar i muntanya saltiness of the terroir shines through gloriously. He bottles it as El Bassots. The 2019 has a lovely, oxygen-rich quality, imbuing the aromatics with marzipan and red berries. The palate is fresh but lush (it’s Spain after all!) with a streak of calcareous acidity reminding you that this is Chenin Blanc. It is, for me, one of the great natural wines. 

If El Bassots represents the extreme of modernist experimentation in Joan’s cellar, Coll del Sabater represents the stylistic opposite: an unmistakably Spanish field-blend characterized by lush, ripe fruit and lingering tannins. But wait! It’s actually comprised of Cabernet Franc co-fermented with Parellada. I love the way the greenness of the franc lifts up the dense, sleek fruit. Now the impulse with this wine is to save it for some sort of roast or steak or leg of lamb, all of which would work just perfectly. I recently had this with …my Thanksgiving Turkey and it played beautifully with rich meat and sides. But big reds—especially reds with nice acidity and herbaceous aromatics—don’t always have to go with big food. The last time I had this wine with Joan, it was at 10:30am at Bar Cortijo in Tarragona, chilled down so intensely that it felt like it had been shaken with ice. We drank it with fried eggs, squid and lots of pan con tomate. I didn’t get a photo of the food but here’s a little shot of our visit, with Luis crouching behind the bar in the background and our friend Quinn nursing some soda water after the feast.

It must be said, in any introduction to Joan Ramon, that he loves to party really hard. Wherever he goes, the music is louder, the pot is more abundant, and the wine is never-ending. Also lots of Carajillos.  But like all the best partiers, it never feels like it’s about him—rather, he has an atypically extreme commitment to his fellow revelers, and takes pride in bringing life to whatever room he enters. He is pictured above with his frequent collaborator and best friend, the philosopher-bon-vivant Laureano Serres. They make the Vamos? Vamos! wine together and also are responsible for creating the expression “Brutal!” which has now become a ubiquitous image in natty wine circles. It must be said, though, that they are also some of the only winemakers that still abide by its original meaning, which I roughly translate as outrageous-audacious-irrational-wow! The expression has transformed into a wine label, but it can apply to people, actions, art, books, anything.

What’s puzzling about Joan Ramón, though, is that his wines are not often brutal in any straightforward manner. In fact, they tend to be poised, structured and accessible—not at all what you would expect from someone who takes his morning coffee while listening to “Highway to Hell” at full blast. I won’t try to explain this away. That’s just Joan, a confusing and completely lovable person who makes wine for humans to drink. I suppose, in this era of an almost completely rationalized wine industry (from which “natural” wine is not exempt) such a normal thing as making wine for humans to drink may in fact count as brutal. Anyway, Nas del Gegant, the wine that all of you will receive this month, is a red field blend led by Garnatxa and Merlot. For me. it’s the most drinkable and friendly of his wines. Not sure how he does it, but Joan always manages to tease out minerality and freshness in fully extracted reds. This could be chilled and slurped down by itself or paired up perfectly with a standing rib roast. It is quintessential party wine: easy to drink, pairs with everything, and your natty-wine-head friends will dig it as much as your beer-drinking uncle. It typifies what Joan calls "aigua viva.”