Summary
MontRubí is a very old estate located approximately one hour north of Barcelona in the Penedès region. The estate’s long history began in the 1800s as the village cooperative. In 1984 they transitioned from a cooperative to a small scale independent producer of estate-grown Cava. In 2000, they made yet another pivotal decision by ending Cava production altogether due to the increasingly large scale operations springing up and the concomitant race to the bottom quality- and price point-wise.
From there they launched the "Gaintus Project.” From their website:
"When MontRubí was founded in 1984 in an 1880s building which had been producing wines and oil for export to Cuba until the early 20th century, we started with the production of Cava. A few years later, after experiencing the battle of prices which the cava industry was going through, we decided to change direction and made a strong bet towards a different project: produce still wines with indigenous grapes and that’s when the Gaintus Project was born.
This project started in the year 2000 and reflected our interest in the recovery of the grape Sumoll, a variety which had been widely extended in Catalonia and especially in Penedès. However, since this is a delicate grape with certain difficulties to grow, combined with the Phylloxera plague and its replacement with grapes for the production of Cava and foreign grapes, Sumoll was almost extinct.
In the year 2001, after the recovery of an old Sumoll vineyard which had “survived” the extinction, we released Gaintus, the world’s first 100% Sumoll red wine. The name Gaintus refers to a climbing trail in the Pyrenees and it symbolizes the challenge that MontRubí was facing as well as being pioneers in opening a new path. It was a long journey, since when we decided to recover Sumoll everyone around was recommending us against it because it was a delicate grape with its difficulties to grow. It was an experimental phase as there was hardly any information on how to deal with this grape. Nevertheless, we can say that, along all these years, we kept learning how to domesticate it and that is how we obtained the recognition for being the world pioneers in the production of wines with Sumoll."
MontRubí is certified organic and farms 30 hectares of mountain vineyards between 400 and 800 meters asl., in the Coastal Catalan mountain range with a Mediterranean and continental influence. The soils are a mix of clay, slate, and sand. The slate in particular helps retain water from the winter to help the vines through very hot summers. Along with the red Sumoll they also grow and produce white wines from Xarel-lo, Macabeu, Parellada, Garnacha, and Cariñena (Carignan). The wines are made in a modern facility. Aging is done in French oak barrels, concrete eggs, and clay amphorae.
