The Chicken Farm, the Dreamers & the Bird Hand
Celler Entre Vinyes — "among the vines" — is the project Maria Barrena and Josep "Pep" Tort began in 2010 to save a vineyard that was about to disappear: three hectares of vines over eighty years old, almost abandoned and sentenced to be uprooted inside the Foix Natural Park, in the Baix Penedès. Pep is the third generation of growers in his family, whose land near the Mediterranean has been farmed since the 1940s; Maria is also a partner at Azul y Garanza in Navarra — Entre Vinyes is the dream they built between the two lives. The first wines were made in friends' wineries; since 2017 everything is made on-site, in a rehabilitated chicken farm in the town of L'Arboç that the couple, with their children, keep transforming day by day — "a living project that grows with us." Today they care for six hectares of Xarel·lo, Macabeu, Parellada, Xarel·lo Vermell and Muscat — old vines planted in 1953 and 1976, others a century and more, at 300 to 450 metres on clay and limestone — farmed certified organic, regeneratively, with permaculture and biodynamic principles: green cover all year, wild plants weaving through the rows, a vineyard treated as an autonomous ecosystem. In the cellar, indigenous yeasts only, amphorae and steel, no fining, no filtration, minimal or zero sulfur. The range is called Oniric — Catalan for "dreamer" — because the project began as a dream of rescuing the family's old vines. And the birds on every label? A sign of life, of a balanced ecosystem, of farming honestly; and because the grapes, at last, have their own home — as birds have their nests.
The Condemned Vines, the Chicken Farm & the Dreamer's Hand
Entre Vinyes began as a rescue. In 2010, Maria Barrena and Pep Tort took on three hectares of old vines inside the Natural Park of Foix — plants over eighty years old, almost abandoned, sentenced to be uprooted. "With that vineyard," they recall, "everything that made sense to us was about to disappear: a wine-growing landscape passed down from generation to generation." Beyond the bucolic landscape, they wanted to protect the plants themselves — vines adapted and rooted to that land over a human lifetime and more. The first vintage was 2010; from 2012 the project grew serious, the wines made in friends' wineries while a home of their own was prepared.
The couple arrived from two directions. Pep is the third generation of a Penedès growing family — the family's vineyards near the Mediterranean coast have been tended since the 1940s, planted in 1953 and 1976, twenty-five hectares of Xarel·lo, Macabeu, Parellada and Chardonnay at 300 to 350 metres. Maria is one of the partners at Azul y Garanza, the pioneering organic winery of Navarra's Bardenas Reales — Entre Vinyes is the Barrena family's second project, the dream of rescuing her husband's family parcels. Together they chose the name that says where life happens: entre vinyes, among the vines.
In 2017 the wines came home — to a former chicken farm in L'Arboç, transformed completely into a cellar. The symbolism is deliberate, and they laugh about it: a site of industrial agriculture reimagined as a biodiverse ecosystem, grapes that finally have their own winery "as birds have their nests." Maria and Pep, together with their children, keep building the space day by day, "without pause and without fear." It is not a finished winery but a living one — a project, they say, that grows with them.
"We see our vineyards as autonomous ecosystems. They're alive with animals, flowers, insects, and microorganisms. Life belongs here."
— Maria Barrena, Celler Entre Vinyes
The Foix Park, the Sea Air & the Limestone Hand
The vines live in two kinds of old ground. In and beside the Parc Natural del Foix — a protected reservoir landscape of hills, forest and limestone in the Baix Penedès — lie the rescued parcels: vines over eighty years old, some reportedly past a century, on virgin, calcareous soil, farmed organically on land the park keeps wild. Nearer the village, the L'Arboç estate holds the family parcels planted in 1953 and 1976 at around 450 metres — clay and limestone, certified organic, within sight and smell of the Mediterranean. The sea is close enough to matter: maritime humidity softens the summer, and the old, deep roots do the rest.
The region needs little introduction, but it does need correcting. The Penedès is Cava country — the DO that reinvented Spanish sparkling wine, first in Spain with stainless steel and cold fermentation in the 1970s — and for a century its native grapes, Xarel·lo, Macabeu and Parellada, existed to be blended and bubbled. The quiet revolution of the last decade is the still, single-varietal Xarel·lo: the grape Cava kept for structure and acid turns out, from old vines and careful hands, to make white wines of texture, salinity and age. Entre Vinyes is part of that vanguard — and keeps the near-extinct Xarel·lo Vermell, the pink-skinned mutation, alive in its own rows.
What makes the farming distinctive is what is left standing. Walk the parcels and you find no bare, tidy rows: green cover grows all year, wild plants and weeds weave between the vines, flowers and insects move through the canopy. The philosophy is beyond organic — regenerative, permaculture, biodynamic in outlook: the vineyard as an autonomous ecosystem that regulates its own equilibrium, producing low yields of exceptional fruit without being pushed. "The objective isn't just to avoid pesticides," Maria says. "It's to create a healthy, energetic environment. The vines are more resilient — and the wines express that."
The founding act: three hectares of vines over eighty years old inside the Foix Natural Park, almost abandoned and condemned to be uprooted, recovered parcel by parcel since 2010. Virgin calcareous soil, park-land biodiversity all around, and plants adapted to that exact place across generations. The ecosystem does the regulation; the family does the care. Little by little, with great intention and awareness, the plots are recovering — and the wines keep coming.
The family vineyard near the village, planted in 1953 and 1976 at around 450 metres on clay and limestone, certified organic and farmed by Pep's family for three generations. Close enough to the Mediterranean to feel its humidity through the summer; high enough to keep the nights cool. This is the source of the Oniric wines — old-vine Xarel·lo with the concentration that only deep, decades-old roots can give.
Every Entre Vinyes label carries a bird, and the reason is the whole philosophy in one image: birds in a vineyard are a sign of life — of a balanced, functioning ecosystem, the reward for farming honestly and correctly. And there is a second meaning the couple like just as much: since 2017 the grapes have their own winery, their own home — as birds have their nests. The chicken farm, fittingly, has become a nest again.
The Penedès built its modern fame on bubbles and technology — the 1970s home of stainless steel and cold fermentation — but its future looks older: native varieties, still wines, old vines. Xarel·lo, once the silent backbone of Cava, now stands alone in wines like Oniric Blanc: aromatic, crisp, textured, saline. Entre Vinyes also keeps Xarel·lo Vermell in the ground — biodiversity not as slogan but as a rescued grape variety.
Indigenous Yeasts, Amphorae & the Trust Hand
Ask Maria for her favourite moment of the year and she doesn't hesitate: fermentation. "It's the most intense moment. You've harvested, you've done your work in the vineyard, the grapes are safe. You're no longer worried about the weather, or diseases, or timing. Now you trust." Entre Vinyes ferments on indigenous yeasts only — the populations the grape skins carry in from the Foix park and the L'Arboç clay — which makes the process unpredictable, and meaningful. Ten intense days, once a year: "You have to trust that the transformation will happen. You're 100% there, physically and emotionally. It's a very human process, and very humbling."
The cellar is minimalist but precise. Pressing, then spontaneous fermentation in stainless steel; clay amphorae for the wines that want slow, breathy development — the Muscat of the Oniric Pet-Nat spends its fermentation there; and an open-ended programme of experimenting with different containers and materials. No fining, no filtration; sulfur minimal before bottling, or absent entirely — the pet-nats are zero-zero, undisgorged, bottled at the tail of fermentation to keep their own gas. The aim never changes: pure wines, with personality, that can express the love of a vineyard and a landscape.
Underneath the calm lies a hard conviction. "To produce and drink natural wine is a political decision," Maria says. "It's not just aesthetics. It's ethics." Choosing native grapes, refusing chemicals, trusting wild fermentation — each is presented, without apology, as a statement about how we treat nature and each other. The wines themselves are disarmingly joyful — fresh, aromatic, full of life, "perfect for the novice natural-wine drinker," as one merchant puts it. The seriousness is in the making; the pleasure is entirely yours.
The Trust Method — Let the Vineyard Transform
The Entre Vinyes method is care in the vineyard and trust in the cellar. Farm old vines organically and regeneratively — green cover all year, wildflowers standing, the ecosystem left to regulate itself — so the fruit arrives balanced and alive. Then let it transform: indigenous yeasts, steel or clay amphora, no fining, no filtration, sulfur at the barest minimum or not at all. Bottle the pet-nats mid-fermentation and crown-cap the gas. Ten days of fermentation, fully present, once a year — and then the patience to let the wine become what the vineyard already decided it would be.
Oniric Blanc, the Pet-Nats & the Dreamer's Hand
The range flies under one name: Oniric — Catalan for "dreamer," because the whole project began as a dream of rescuing the family's old vines. Old-vine Xarel·lo stills, zero-zero pet-nats, and sparkling wines made with different containers and materials as the experiments continue — all certified organic, all indigenous-yeast, all unfined and unfiltered, all carrying a bird on the label. Fresh, aromatic, full of life: natural wine as an open door, not a private club.
The Second Project, the Political Decision & the Living-Ecosystem Hand
Entre Vinyes is the quiet second act of one of Spain's defining natural-wine families. Maria Barrena helped build Azul y Garanza in Navarra's Bardenas Reales — desert-edge organic pioneers — and brought that conviction home to her husband's family land in the Penedès. What the two projects share is a belief that farming is the wine: restore the ecosystem, and the quality follows. In the Foix park, the proof is standing in the rows — vines that were sentenced to be uprooted in 2010 are now the source of the house's most meaningful bottles.
The second legacy is a working model of regeneration. A chicken farm turned into a cellar; industrial agriculture's building reimagined as a biodiverse farm's heart; green cover, wildflowers and birds standing where bare dirt was the norm. Maria and Pep are part of the quiet revolution in European winemaking rooted in biodiversity, respect and patience — and they are explicit that the choice is not aesthetic but ethical, even political: natural wine as a position on how we treat nature and each other.
And the third legacy is already growing up between the rows — the couple's children, transforming the space alongside their parents, in a project the family insists is alive and grows with them. From condemned vines to a bird on every label, from friends' borrowed tanks to their own nest in L'Arboç: Entre Vinyes is what rescue looks like when it works. The dreamers, it turns out, were right to dream.
"To produce and drink natural wine is a political decision. It's not just aesthetics. It's ethics. We need to show people that these wines carry meaning — not just in flavour, but in the way they're made."
— Maria Barrena, Celler Entre Vinyes