L'Abrunet de Frisach Blanc

Ernest Hemingway was a lover of wines in general, and Spanish reds in particular. The North American writer and war correspondent was passionate about Spanish festivals and customs and his work is full of references to wine. He even stopped smoking thanks to wine. “Cigarette smoke is the nose’s worst enemy. And how can you enjoy a good wine that you can't really smell?”, he said during an interview with the journalist A.E. Hotchner.

In principle, he doesn’t say much about liking white wines (except for champagne, which appears in his book ‘Paris is a party’) but defying space-time barriers, it is highly likely that there is now one that he would at least be interested in.

In the DO Tierra Alta, in southern Catalonia, there is a region full of vineyards, olive trees and other crops, where traces of the Civil War are still visible in the form of trenches. There, among the memories and the ruins of El Pueblo Viejo de Corbera (which was bombed by Franco’s troops), L'Abrunet de Frisach Blanc is made, a wine produced by Bodegas Frisach from vines planted on the Cuarto estate, with limestone soils that are poor in organic matter. These vines are bathed in sunshine and a climate with very little rainfall and cold winters, withstanding the onslaught of two winds: the cerzo and the garbinada.

To make L'Abrunet de Frisach Blanc the organic methods used in the vineyards are very important. At this point, they play a remarkable game with the grape ripening, harvesting the same vine in two stages. Firstly, the grapes are harvested at 11.5 º Baumé (which is equivalent to approximately 17 grams of sugar). This gives the wine acidity, freshness and varietal aromas. After this, which leaves the plant with more power to ripen the remaining berries, the second batch is collected at 14 º Baumé.

Finally, L'Abrunet de Frisach Blanc is aged on lees and bottled without clarifying or stabilising.

As well as visiting Bodegas Frisach, you can also go on a tour of the trenches, where you will hear the story of the battle of the Ebro told while tasting some of their wines. No one knows whether Hemingway would like L'Abrunet de Frisach Blanc, but he would not look out of place sipping a glass of wine whilst walking through this war-scarred landscape.