Celler Frisach is Francesc and Joan Ferré, who make energetic natural wines in the Terra Alta appellation of Catalonia. The surname Frisach belongs to their great-grandfather; the name Ca’ Frisach still marks the family home on the main street of their village, Corbera d’Ebre. For over two centuries, the Ferré family has farmed grapes in this area, but it was only in 2009 after Francesc returned from oenology school that the brothers decided to produce their own wines and stop selling their fruit—a change that takes gumption here, given how rare independent family wineries are in Terra Alta, let alone in their proud-but-petite hometown.

Francesc is one of the young stars in the thriving natural wine scene in this part of the world; you’ll see his wines on many lists in Barcelona and in well-regarded restaurants throughout Catalonia. He has a technician’s mind and is something of a perfectionist—but Joan teases that Francesc is as much astrólogo as oenologist. The desire for excellence doesn’t keep the domaine from experimenting, though; each year sees wines made with less and less intervention, lighter extraction, less power—into a more refined and transparent style. Joan and Francesc are also genuine farmers, occasionally up to their knees in mud, always in the vineyards actually doing the work. Today, the fruit of their organically-farmed 20 hectares is rendered into joyful, expressive wines, with many cuvées achieving better clarity each vintage.
Celler Frisach is an evolving project, one that we at Coeur wine co. have been lucky enough to work with for over ten years now. Founded in 2009, the heart of the project stems from the relationship between Francesc and Joan Ferré, two brothers with deep roots in the region – the surname Frisach belongs to their great grandfather and has been attested in the region for hundreds of years. Today, Francesc is just as likely to be called Frisach by his loved ones as his real name or any of the multitude of nicknames he’s earned throughout his life, which is to say he remains the heart and driving force of the winery, a visionary, perfectionist, and loveable lunatic. It’s the enigmatic and laconic Joan, who provides a calming and serene presence and an incredible green thumb that truly gives Cellar Frisach its soul. Later on, the two were joined by Francesc’s partner, Gemma Miro, who has proven to be the secret sauce to the whole endeavor, coinciding with a trend towards lighter extractions and grace and finesse to balance the power and structure endemic in these hills.


The three have shepherded the Cellar Frisach from a punk-rock rejection of the monocropping and industrial wines that dominated the Catalan Highlands into a winery of finesse and lasting influence – together they’ve gone from angry young men to the leading lights of Catalan natural wine, without, even for a second, losing the essential sense of place that has always been their north star. Bottom line here – we were nuts about these guys ten years ago, but now there’s no question – Cellar Frisach are simply among the most talented natural winemakers on earth and the wines they make have never been as essential as they are now.




The trio’s territory is surrounding their village Corbera d’Erbre, a town that was destroyed and then forcibly relocated by the Spanish during the civil war – shells and ordinance and twisted metals litter the soils, which Francesc laughingly calls terroir and references puilly-fume. If you visit the trio, they’ll take you to the ruins of the old town, still cordoned off, full of unexploded bombs and collapsed buildings and hundreds of swallows, known as Abrunet in Catalan. The region is as far from the ocean as Catalonia goes, trading the rolling hills and sea breezes for vaguely Utah-ian mesas and cliffs, a landscape that calls to mind Looney tunes vistas but greener. The climate is mediterranean, which means that on the valley floor, things absolutely cook and steam, but in the highlands, snow is a regular sight and cool nighttimes mollify the scorching sunlight. It’s hard to escape the idea that wine should be made here.

Cellar Frisach’s 20 ha of organic vines are almost entirely old Garnatxas (or Vernatxa locally) of various hues, with a smattering of Cariñena. The soils are sandy, rocky and calcarious, with huge veins of sal de moro, mineral crystals that you can crush with your hand and which prompt the roots to spread far and wide. The best parcels are placed on Panal, a local type of petrified sandstone, the remains of an ancient desert that covered the region 60 million years ago. These soils and the altitude – 300 to 550m above sea level – fight against the varietals’ tendency towards flab and softness, hewing their structures down to almost elemental leanness. The whites feel crystalline and elegant, which suggests that maybe there’s more to this puilly-fume reference than just a goofy punchline. The reds feel almost alpine, lengthened and toned and vigorous. In colder vintages they could disguise themselves as a rare happy tasting poulsard, while in a normal year they feel like an almost weightless gredos. Incredibly, nearly every wine from Cellar Frisach is parcellaire, with the exception of the Abrunet negre, which is a blend from two plots.



The cellar is where, fittingly, much of the experimentation and refinement have occurred in the last decade plus. Ferments are, of course, all spontaneous and the trio has an aversion to new wood (or anything that takes the focus off of their sublime fruit). Concrete tanks, steel, old wood and even some newfangled eggs have all made appearances, as Francesc develops a new vocabulary of references and stylistic icons and, most importantly, goals. As befits a natural wine icon, sulfur is not used at any point in time during fermentation or aging, only at bottling for the three Abrunet cuvees. For the rest of the lineup, where time is less of an issue, the only stabilization comes from aging – the results are impressive; clean and vibrant living wine. As a whole, extractions tend towards the lighter end, relying on the grape’s phenolic ripeness rather than alcohol or body to make the wines feel complete. A throughpoint in all the wines is a kind of radical intentionality – each wine feels deeply distinct and justified in the lineup - although the cellar makes a lot of wines, it would be near impossible to mix any of them up.