The meticulous, eccentric and dedicated Joan Asens has been an influential wine authority in Catalunya for more than two decades, and as a professor of lunar cycles at the local winemaking University in Falset, he is considered a “guru of biodynanmics”. At the helm of viticulture and vineyard management for the acclaimed Alvaro Palacios in Priorat for nearly 18 years, Joan Asens has played a vital role in the creation of some of Spain’s most elite wines. Returning home to Mas Roig in 2009, Montsant to cultivate his friends and family’s old vines, has proved no exception. With a vibrancy and freshness unmatched in the DO, the seamless wines of Orto Vins, generally have a brighter finish, lower alcohol, and softer, floral, even elegant tannins.

Joan and three of his childhood friends are dedicated to elaborating pure wines following the traditional farming philosophies of their great grandparents and honoring the biodynamic cycle of the moon. Leaving no grape behind, Joan begins a trickle harvest 6 weeks ahead of most, with daily picking and subsequent drying of all the little raisins that have developed within each of cluster of sun drenched bunches. From these earlyharvested, concentrated and dried grapes, Orto Vins makes two (white and red) very luscious dessert wines with a mild 15% alcohol. With each pass through the vineyard, with each pick, the vine’s energy focuses on the remaining fruit so that each grape is harvested at their optimum physiological ripeness. Not at all green, and never raisinated at the time of final harvest, Orto Vins is a true vineyard selection.