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Finca Garbet: four elements combine in an award-winning Syrah

11 August 2025 By Michael Huband

Born of a spectacular vineyard sat between the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean, Finca Garbet makes the most of its beautiful location. To craft a top wine there, however, is easier said than done.

Not many vineyards boast as idyllic a view as Finca Garbet. The single plot, which gives its name to two wines in Perelada’s range, is just metres from the Mediterranean and a couple of kilometres from 700m high peaks of the Pyrenees. Its steep terraces face out to the sea at around 120m elevation, basking in the reflected sunlight and swaying in the mountain breezes. This particular site, part of DO Empordà, feels thousands of miles from the more famous vineyards of Rioja or Ribera del Duero.

The winemakers at Perelada take a poetic view of the site. Considered the ‘favourite child’ at the winery, the vineyard shows the influence of the four classical elements. Water, in the form of the Mediterranean, moderates the climate. Air, cooled by altitude, flows down the mountains to promote freshness in the grapes. Earth, the area’s slate-dominated acidic soils, provides a distinctive terroir for complexity of flavour. Fire, in the form of bright sunshine, ripens the grapes.

It is a romantic formulation, yes, but justified when the pedigree of the wines is considered. Both Aires de Garbet, the Garnacha, and Finca Garbet, the Syrah, are award-winners. In fact, the Finca Garbet 2021 – the 20th anniversary vintage of the wine – just won a Master medal at the Global Syrah Masters 2025.

Yet, as any fable will tell you, beauty comes with a price. The vineyard offers huge potential for fine winemaking, but it also demands a lot of its owners.

Heroic viticulture on a unique site

With such a remarkable landscape, mechanisation is impossible. Instead, workers must ascend the steep terraces and conduct all work by hand. Naturally, it is a significant investment of time and money, but it means that the fruit can be selected according to the most rigorous principles.

Tending the vines is particularly challenging given the organic and regenerative viticulture that Perelada practices. Such production methods purposefully care for the vines, soil and broader ecosystem, a choice that builds health in the biome and allows better wine to be made. Yet it is, once more, labour intensive, requiring careful management of the site.

Another challenge comes from the soils. The slate-dominated terroir contains little organic matter and has excellent drainage. These two factors stress the vines, encouraging the production of high-quality fruit rather than vegetative growth. For a maker of fine wine, that is certainly good news.

*Terracing is essential on the Mediterranean-facing site.*

However, under the Mediterranean sun, it is a double-edged sword. The soils drain so freely that irrigation is essential to ensure the vines survive the season. Perelada has thus had to carefully consider its water management, balancing winemaking and sustainability.

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The producer has minimised its impact from the very start. In 1997, the same year the vineyard was planted, Perelada began a bold sustainability initiative. It chose to reuse wastewater from the local treatment plant, treating it to ensure its suitability and transferring it to a large pond. There, the water is analysed before being used to irrigate the vineyard. The scheme thus reuses existing resources without compromising on water quality and vine health.

Getting the most from the grapes

Practices in the winery itself are similarly exacting. Finca Garbet, the recently garlanded Syrah, a key focus is to extract the full spectrums of colours, tannins and aromas in the grape.

Pre-fermentation maceration takes place at a controlled temperature, minimising the loss of volatile flavour compounds. It then ferments at a gentle 24°C, with daily pumping over to continue the extraction process. A maceration of 20 days ensures that none of the grapes’ complexity is lost.

Having made the wine, it then rests in oak for 12 months. These 300-litre barrels impart subtle flavours to the powerful wine and – equally importantly – allow the micro-oxygenation that softens and develops the flavour profile. Further ageing in the bottle before release allows the aromas to mature, layering in added subtleties.

The 2021 season, twenty years since Finca Garbet’s first vintage, offered high quality, despite a worrying start. The spring was notably dry, yet later rainfall ensured that the vines had enough water to survive. Indeed, the water stress struck a compromise between yield and value: although the crop was down 30% on the previous year, the quality was described as “extraordinary” at the winery.

That 2021 vintage of Finca Garbet secured a Master medal – the highest category of award – at The Global Syrah Masters 2025. Below, Patrick Schmitt MW provides his tasting note.

Perelada Finca Garbet 2021

Producer: Perelada
Region: Catalonia
Country: Spain
Grape variety: 100% Syrah
ABV: 14.5%
Approx. retail price: £110

Proving that serious, powerful and age-worthy Shiraz can be crafted in Catalonia is this expression from Perelada’s Finca Garbet. While rich in notes of dark cherry and sweet blackberry, then vanilla and coconut, it also has this dry, minty edge, with a note of fresh herbs and dense tannins that coat the mouth after you’ve swallowed this first-rate and lip-smacking red.