Agustí Torelló Roca grew up shadowing his father in the vines and spending summers at his grandfather's winery. When he set out on his own, he chose to put terroir, not tradition for its own sake, at the centre of everything.
Backstory
Agustí studied winemaking in Tarragona and apprenticed with Bruno Michel, a pioneer of organic farming in Champagne. In 2013 he founded AT Roca with his father, Agustí Torelló Sibill, and his aunt, Lali Torelló Sibill. In 2015 he added Anima Mundi, a project for minimal-intervention still wines and ancestral sparklers farmed organically and biodynamically, worked in a small corner of the family cellar and vineyards near the 11th-century Benedictine monastery of Sant Sebastià dels Gorgs.
The Region
The estate sits in the eastern Penedès, near the Massís del Garraf and the foothills of the Ordal mountains, within about 20 kilometres of the Mediterranean. Rather than bottle under the Cava DO, AT Roca joined Clàssic Penedès, a designation that requires organic farming, a minimum 15 months on the lees, traditional method and vintage dating.
Vineyards & Farming
The house works around 38 hectares of organically farmed, north-facing vineyards on marine-origin soils laid down some 20 million years ago when the area lay underwater. The focus is on indigenous Catalan varieties, above all the late-ripening Macabeu, alongside Xarel-lo and Parellada. All grapes are hand-harvested.
Winemaking
Fermentations run on indigenous yeasts only. Sparkling wines are made by the traditional method, finished with zero dosage and aged on natural cork, with a minimum of 15 months on the lees. Sulfur is added once, to retain natural acidity. Single-vineyard still wines such as the Xarel-lo from the high Cantallops site ferment in used barrels. The Anima Mundi wines push further, made with no additions at all, including no added sulfur, raised in clay amphora, concrete and used French oak.
The Wines
The result is a range of taut, place-driven sparkling wines and a small line of still Xarel-lo, all built around freshness, tension and the chalky character of the eastern Penedès.
