The Seven Hundred Years, the Almond Village & the Political Act
Celler Comalats is a family estate in the far west of Catalunya — in L'Ametlla de Segarra, a village of nine residents named for, and shaped like, an almond, perched above the Vall del Corb in the DO Costers del Segre. The Bonet family has farmed this land for seven hundred years, and in 1989, as the vineyards of Segarra lay abandoned and the population drained towards Barcelona, Jaume Bonet planted Cabernet Sauvignon — a political act that became Celler Comalats. Today his children Eva, Eloi and Núria farm twelve hectares of clay and limestone at 710 metres, certified organic from the very beginning, and vinify Garnatxa, Picapoll, Syrah and Cabernet with zero intervention — no fining, no filtration, no sulfur — in concrete, steel, amphora and demijohn. Eva, the village's mayor, is known affectionately as La Marquesa de la Garnatxa. The name Comalats comes from the land itself: a valley is a coma, and a succession of valleys a comalada.
The Grain Sea, the Templar Tower & the Founder's Hand
The story of Comalats is the story of a family that never left. The Bonets have inhabited L'Ametlla de Segarra for some seven hundred years — a village in the dead centre of the province of Lleida, perched high on a plain above waves of grain dotted with pine and evergreen, where a cylindrical stone tower, the last remnant of a castle built by the Templars, still surveys the rooftops. The population today numbers nine people, swelling to forty in summer. In the 1970s, the family watched the vineyards of Segarra fall into neglect as the countryside emptied towards Barcelona in search of work that did not involve agriculture. Vines were ripped out or laid to waste; cereal took over the landscape.
It was Jaume Bonet who reversed the current. In 1989 — against the grain of a countryside that had forgotten its vines — he planted Cabernet Sauvignon and established Celler Comalats, working organically and with ecological certification from the very first day. The decision to plant a foreign variety in a depopulated Catalan valley was, in the words of those who tell the story, a political act: a declaration that this land still had a winegrowing future. The first wines followed the fashion of the era — powerful, full-bodied reds, traditionally vinified and aged long in oak. Jaume's dream was twofold: to revive winemaking amid the grain farming that had come to dominate, and one day to export these wines to the world. He lived to see the estate flourish; the export dream, his daughter Eva notes, is happening now, for the first time.
Three decades on, the second generation has taken the reins — and taken the estate a decisive step further. Eva Bonet leads in the cellar, Eloi Bonet leads in the vineyards, and their sister Núria completes the trio. Where Jaume planted Cabernet, his children are grafting and planting the autochthonous varieties — Garnatxa Negra and Picapoll Blanc — alongside the inherited Syrah and Cabernet. Where the first wines were oaked and powerful, the new wines are pure, fresh, and made without any intervention at all. Eva — who serves as the village's mayor and is known throughout the Catalan natural wine world as La Marquesa de la Garnatxa for her devotion to the grape — has become one of the most beloved figures of the region's wine renaissance. Together with her husband Ricard Grau, an architect, she has also opened Casa Comalats, a guesthouse in the village — a winegrower and an architect choosing, deliberately, a life in the village.
Production remains deliberately small — around 15,000 bottles a year — and the philosophy is stated plainly on the estate's own terms: the wines are made "com es feia abans" — as it was done before — always respecting nature, with the goal of pure wines without any intervention, so that each one can transmit the essence of the land it comes from. Only grapes from the family's own vineyards are ever used. It is a continuity project disguised as a natural wine estate: seven hundred years of the Bonet family, made liquid.
"I like that the wines of Comalats breathe tradition, that they flee from fashions, authenticity — that they fill your mouth, that they nourish."
— Eva Bonet, Celler Comalats
The Vall del Corb, the Seven Hundred Metres & the Comalada Hand
Comalats takes its name from the land itself. In Catalan, a valley is a coma, and a succession of valleys is a comalada — and the historic name for the rolling geography of sierras and valleys surrounding L'Ametlla de Segarra is precisely that: comalats. The estate sits in the Vall del Corb subzone of the DO Costers del Segre, in the comarca of Segarra — the dead centre of Lleida, a province so sprawling and remote that visitors compare it to the far west. Here the dominant crop is cereal, an endless sea of grain broken only by almond groves, olive trees, and, like small treasures, the occasional vineyard.
The estate's twelve hectares sit at just over 700 metres of altitude at the top of the Vall del Corb, planted on calcareous clay and shadowed by the Pyrenees to the north. The combination is the secret of the wines: the cooling, moisture-retaining clay-limestone soil and the dramatic diurnal temperature swings of this altitude give the fruit an energising freshness and preserve its natural acidity, whatever the summer heat. The remoteness is itself a form of protection — the nearest main road is twenty kilometres away, there is no industrial agriculture in any direction, and at 710 metres, disease and pests simply do not thrive. The vines are, in a word, pristine.
The viticulture has been certified organic since Jaume Bonet founded the estate in 1989 — under the CCPAE, the Catalan Council of Ecological Agricultural Production — decades before organic certification became a marketing asset. The second generation has deepened the commitment: the vineyard is worked with a philosophy of care and respect for the land and the expression of place, and the varietal palette is being rebalanced towards the autochthonous. The foreign varieties — Cabernet Sauvignon, planted by Jaume as the founding act, and Syrah — remain, giving structure and spice. But the future belongs to the native grapes: Garnatxa Negra, Eva's great love, and Picapoll Blanc, including a treasured plot of 50-year-old vines that gives the Marquesa orange wine.
To stand in the comalats and look out over the land is to understand the wines before tasting them. As Eva's husband Ricard puts it: "when you drink a bottle, you're not only drinking wine. You're drinking a family's history, the difficulties, the challenges — you're drinking the whole story." It is terroir in the fullest sense: soil, altitude, isolation, memory, and seven centuries of stubborn continuity, all poured into fifteen thousand bottles a year.
A village named for an almond, and shaped like one — L'Ametlla de Segarra sits high on the Segarra plain, its skyline crowned by a cylindrical stone tower that is all that remains of a Templar castle. Nine people live here year-round; forty in the summer. Eva Bonet is the mayor — la marquesa, the queen — and the village is the estate: the vines, the cellar, and Casa Comalats, the guesthouse she runs with her husband Ricard. In an age of rural abandonment across inland Spain, Comalats is a counter-argument: proof that a village of nine can produce wines drunk in Barcelona, London and New York.
At just over 700 metres above sea level, the Comalats vineyards occupy a different climate from the Catalan lowlands. Summer days can be fiercely hot, but the nights drop sharply — diurnal swings that lock freshness and acidity into the ripening fruit. The altitude also acts as a natural shield: fungal disease and pests struggle at this elevation, allowing the family to farm cleanly and organically without heroic measures. The result is a style that defies the latitude: reds of moderate alcohol and vivid lift, an orange wine of barely 10.5–11%, and a rosé that tastes of citrus rather than sun-baked fruit.
The twelve hectares are planted over calcareous clay — a soil that combines the water-retaining coolness of clay with the mineral backbone of limestone. In a dry continental climate, this is the difference between stressed vines and serene ones: the clay holds winter moisture deep through the summer, while the calcium gives the wines their saline, structuring edge. It is the same soil logic that underpins the great vineyards of the Costers del Segre DO — dark, lime-rich, low in organic matter, and perfectly suited to producing wines of aroma, balance and tannic poise.
The varietal palette at Comalats tells the estate's whole history in four grapes. Cabernet Sauvignon is the founder's grape — the political act of 1989, proof that this valley could make serious wine. Syrah is its natural companion in the Lleida interior. But the second generation is writing the future in the autochthonous: Garnatxa Negra, light-footed and peppery, the love of La Marquesa herself; and Picapoll Blanc, the ancient Catalan white, including a 50-year-old single plot. Grafting and replanting continue, vintage by vintage — the foreign vines slowly yielding ground to the grapes that were always meant to be here.
Brisat Whites, Short Macerations & the Zero-Intervention Hand
In the cellar, the second generation has drawn a clear line under the estate's first era. Where Jaume's wines were powerful, oaked and traditionally made, Eva and Eloi's are defined by a single ambition: pure wines without any intervention. Fermentations are spontaneous, with indigenous yeasts only. The wines are unfined and unfiltered, and the core range is bottled without any added sulfur at all. Oak has been retired in favour of concrete tanks, stainless steel, clay amphorae and glass demijohns — vessels that add texture or preserve fruit without ever imposing flavour. The entry-level wines are bottled the spring after harvest, capturing each vintage at its freshest.
The techniques are simple, precise, and quietly radical. The whites are made brisat-style — macerated on their skins like reds — a tradition as old as Catalan winemaking itself: the Marquesa Picapoll macerates for days, sometimes weeks, before pressing, and ages in amphora. The reds are destemmed and given deliberately short macerations — 24 hours for the Alosa Garnatxa, 48 to 72 hours for the Esparver Syrah — sometimes blended with a portion of direct-pressed juice to lift the wines and keep them supple. Some cuvées play with timing: the Alosa is harvested at two different moments in the season to balance freshness against ripeness. Everything is an exercise in restraint — extraction kept gentle, alcohol kept moderate, acidity kept alive.
What emerges is a family of wines that share a single signature: purity of flavour and profound drinkability. They are, in the words of the family's importers, all-embracing and versatile — wines to be enjoyed any time, by anyone — yet made with a rigour that the most demanding natural wine drinker can interrogate without finding a crack. The estate's own phrase for the method is the oldest one in the language: "com es feia abans" — as it was done before. At Comalats, the future of winemaking in the Vall del Corb looks remarkably like its deepest past.
And the project extends beyond the cellar door. Through Casa Comalats, Eva and Ricard welcome guests into the village itself — three double rooms, a garden, a small pool, local breakfast baskets, and six bottles of the family's wine waiting on arrival. Visitors can walk the comalats, tour the cellar, and understand in an afternoon what seven hundred years feels like. It is wine tourism of the most literal kind: come and see what a living village tastes like.
As It Was Done Before — The Comalats Covenant
The covenant of Comalats is a closed loop of trust: pristine organic fruit from 700-metre vineyards needs nothing added and nothing taken away. The indigenous-yeast fermentations begin on their own, in concrete, steel, amphora or glass. The brisat macerations give the whites texture without weight; the short red macerations give the reds perfume without harshness. The spring bottlings capture the vintage whole. And the zero-sulfur, zero-fining, zero-filtration regime keeps every wine alive from vat to glass. Nothing here is styled, corrected or disguised — each bottle is the Vall del Corb in a given year, farmed by the family that has known these valleys for seven centuries. Wines that breathe tradition, flee from fashion, fill the mouth, and nourish: that is the entire recipe.
Marquesa, Gavernera, Alosa & the Sea-of-Cereals Hand
The Comalats range is a portrait of the Vall del Corb in five movements — an orange, a rosé and three reds, each built on short macerations, native yeasts and zero additions, each named for the birds and figures of the family's world, and together forming one of the most coherent and fairly-priced line-ups in Catalan natural wine. The wines span Picapoll Blanc brisat aged in amphora, direct-pressed Garnatxa rosé, two-harvest Garnatxa red, concrete-aged Syrah, and a Cabernet-Garnatxa co-ferment — all from estate fruit, all certified organic, all unfined, unfiltered and unsulfured. Production is around 15,000 bottles a year, exported for the first time in the estate's history — Jaume's founding dream, fulfilled by his children.
The Founder, the Marquesa & the Whole-Story Hand
Comalats is not merely a winery; it is a monument to continuity in a landscape of abandonment — a place where a family that has farmed the same village for seven hundred years refused, in 1989, to let the winegrowing thread break. Jaume Bonet's Cabernet vines were a wager against history: that a depopulated valley of grain could still produce wine worth making. His children have turned that wager into something he perhaps only dreamed of — a living estate, a living village, and wines travelling the world. The export dream he spoke of is, at last, happening on his children's watch.
The legacy of the second generation is the legacy of the return to the native and the pure. Eva, Eloi and Núria did not reject their father's work; they completed it. The organic certification he began, they kept. The foreign varieties he planted, they honoured — and then grafted and replanted the Garnatxa and Picapoll that were always meant to be here. The powerful, oaked wines of the first era gave way to wines of 10.5, 12, 13 degrees — fresher, kinder, more drinkable, made as it was done before. In Eva — mayor of a village of nine, Marquesa de la Garnatxa, guesthouse host, winemaker — the Catalan natural wine movement has found one of its most authentic faces: not an incomer romanticising the countryside, but a daughter of seven centuries, farming forward.
The future of the project is tied to the future of the Vall del Corb itself — to the conviction that the remotest corners of Catalonia, far from any main road, can sustain both fine wine and human life. As Marquesa proves that Picapoll can give one of Spain's most charming orange wines, as Alosa carries the Garnatxa flag into glasses from Barcelona to Brooklyn, as Esparver and Isarda show what altitude does to Syrah and Cabernet, and as Casa Comalats fills its rooms with travellers seeking a quieter pace, the Bonet family remains what it has been for seven hundred years: stewards of a comalada — guided not by fashion but by clay and limestone, seven hundred metres of altitude, native yeasts, zero intervention, nine neighbours, and the eternal reminder that a bottle can hold a whole story. The story of this estate is the story of a father who planted, the children who pure-fied, and the village that refused to disappear.
"When you drink a bottle, you're not only drinking wine. You're drinking a family's history, the difficulties, the challenges — you're drinking the whole story."
— Ricard Grau, Casa Comalats