Loxarel, Penedès, Spain.
When you think “Spanish Winery’ Loxarel really hits the mark on every level. Beautiful setting, beautiful wines, beautiful people - they’ve got it all.
Now into his fourth decade of making wine we think it’s safe to say Josep has the hang of it. Winemaking at Loxarel embodies all of the things we love here at BinTwo. It’s a small operation, they farm biodynamically, they champion native varieties and produce wines of dazzling clarity and purity.
Loxarel is an anagram of the native variety that they showcase above all others: Xarel-lo. You may not be familiar with it - it’s most commonly used to produce Cava - but Josep does much more with it than that. Josep introduced the use of amphora - large clay fermentation vessels - at Loxarel in 2011 and Xarel-lo was the first grape he experimented with in a 720 litre amphora. Coincidentally it was the first wine of his that I tried.
I’ve been smitten ever since and now I’m like some sort of helpless fan-boy waiting to see what he’ll release next. Luckily Loxarel return this adulation by producing consistently outstanding and wines.
“Loxarel consistently hit the mark. If the shop was on fire and I could only save what I could carry, I’d be reaching for the Loxarel shelf… probably.”
The BinTwo take