Celler Joan d'Anguera

Settled the village of Darmos, which lies within the Spanish DO of Montsant, sits the ever-curious and quietly ebullient Josep d’Anguera. He and his brother Joan represent the seventh generation of Celler Joan d’Anguera, and the very first to have been fired from the appellation.

Yes, you read that right; the new generation are a pack of rebels, hauling off on their own to make, well, downright delicious wines. You see, Montsant may have done them a favor; annually there is a tasting panel to assess the “typicity” of the wines of each producer from the vintage. Do they fit? Do they adhere? Do they belong? Well, when certain publications started vaunting the wines of Montsant into the upper echelons of Spanish Oenophilia, the Garnacha became jammier, the Carinyena grew darker, and Syrah even entered the fray. The d’Anguera estate even fell prey to this fascination, and achieved the title of “Best Wine of Spain” at one point.

”We fell into the Wine Spectator fashion,” admits Josep. “It was good…but when you taste really good wines, wines of tradition, we tended to like the other wines even though ours had higher scores.”

Probed about his upbringing, Josep freely volunteers that he had no great interest in the vineyard work. “We were not very happy, to tell [the] truth,” he starts, “Helping in the vineyards, or the cellars after school. Though there was something special to it that we always had: you go out to the vineyards - we were 13, 14 maybe - and you stop for breakfast, but you never drink water. Only wine. I started to realize, and believe it very much now: To produce the types of wines we want to make, you have to be farmers."

With history dating back to 1820, the family had always sold their fruit to the co-operatives who still dominate Montsant; Josep’s father was the very first to bottle his own wine, starting with the 1984 harvest.

In 2008, some eight years after the brothers’ father had passed, they began uprooting the Syrah vines, and transitioning the vineyard back to fully organic viticulture; the focus? Garnacha. “Garnacha is the main thing, here in my place,” Josep declares. “Garnacha has to be ripe; the alcohol is always high, yet with the fickle grape, Josep smiles as he tells us, “If I see the light color, I get excited!"

As the brothers grew into their own shoes, rather than dad’s, they began traveling more, and found that they found more connection with producers in other regions than their own. “I brought a bottle of Rayas to my friends from Montsant; they say, ‘No good!’ For me, with Rayas, much like Mugnier, Elio Sandri, Confuron-Cotidot, when tasting the wines, their philosophy was visible. They taught me that I don’t want to learn how, but why I am doing what I am doing.” What he omits is obvious, though he’s too kind to say it: to be excused from the Montsant DO was a favor to the d’Anguera name. With that, Josep doubles down on his intent in regard to his heritage: “Each generation improves the process, but they improve it with great respect.”

”Most of all, I learned I must make wines that are always in my style; I want to know it when I smell my wines.”

VITICULTURE & VINIFICATION

Blessed with sandy, calcareous soils, Garnacha in this part of the world can develop a beautiful floral tone that lifts what could easily have become a varietal known for richness and alcohol. With 24 hectares under vine, Garnacha takes up the bulk of the plantings, but some old-vine Carinyena (Carignan) and Macabeu remain. Overall, the vines range between 15-70 years of age.

The altitude is not massive, some 40m above sea level at parts of their vineyards, up to 200m. Temperatures vary through the summertime, with it hitting 28 Celsius in the daytime; in the Spring & Autumn, a thermal inversion occurs, which provides a much cooler temperature - during the 2025t vintage, Josep recalls that it was 7 Celsius at harvest time.

Planella (Garnacha & Carinyena) & Altaroses (Garnacha) are the entry-level wines, though they also include grapes from the younger parts of the top plots within Finca l”Argata. L’Argata is a lieu-dit within Montsant that is known to be the best location within the village of Darmos. Of the 80 hectares, 22 of L’Argata are owned by d’Anguera. From here, L’Argata Blanco and two Tinto (red) wines are produced. “Vinya de la Gloria” was a discovery of the brothers, in a way; though the family had always sold their fruit in bulk until 1984, the Gloria parcel was the only plot retained by the family, which Josep jokes was just to serve his grandfather’s own consumption. “The tank was different,” he says, and today it is the latest-harvested parcel, and the most complex.