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Jürgen Wagner, a qualified oenologist with a degree from Geisenheim, also allowed himself to embark on an adventure in 1999 – only that his began in the Catalonian town of Priorato.
The cooperative Celler de Capçanes with its 200 hectares of ground on stony, hard-to-access, mountainous terrain near Tarragona, has just recently caused a stir worldwide with its first kosher “Flor de Primavera”. And since then the Heidelberg-born winemaker has been writing part of a success story that has made it as far as the Wall Street Journal. In Capçanes, part of the Montsant area of cultivation, wines are made here from 100 year old Garnacha vines that feature on the menus of top star restaurants from Bensberg, Paris and New York to San Francisco, Montreal, Tokyo, Shanghai and Bangkok. The range of grape varieties at Capçanes also includes Cariñena and Samsó, as well as some Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah and Tempranillo. “Capçanes is my baby,” says the proud 42 year old. To ensure the company continues to grow strongly and prosper Wagner spends over three months of the year on worldwide promotion tours during which time his colleague Angel Teixidó takes care of the wines in the cellar. The fixtures in Jürgen Wagner calendar do admittedly include one every year at the end of March in Düsseldorf: ProWein – which has now become the most important wine trade fair worldwide.
by Thomas Brandl