The Diseducation & the Terruño

The story of Rubén Parera begins in El Papiol, a town in the Baix Llobregat region just west of Barcelona, where he was born in 1979 into a family that has been farming the same land since 1892. The Pareras are fourth-generation farmers — pagesos in the Catalan tradition — and for decades they grew grapes, cherries, almonds, olives, and vegetables, selling their produce to cooperatives and local markets. But it wasn't until Rubén finished his studies that the family began making wine under their own label. Rubén trained as an Agricultural Engineer at ESAB and as a Winemaker at URV — the Escola Superior d'Agricultura de Barcelona and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili — two of Catalonia's most respected institutions. He then spent more than 20 vintages working abroad and across Spain: at Château Pourquey Gazeau in Bordeaux, at Bodega Bellod, at Bodega Minguet in El Papiol, at Bodega Terrera de en Tassis in Espolla, and at Mitchell Cellars in the United States. It was a classical education, rigorous and technical, and it produced a winemaker who could make perfect, textbook wines.

In 1999, Rubén and his father Jordi Parera launched the winery at the Can Minguet farmhouse in El Papiol — a small, functional cellar where they began producing wines from their own harvest. The early wines were clean, precise, and technically correct. But something was missing. As one importer noted after tasting Rubén's 2013 wines: they were "perfect… almost too perfect." Rubén had mastered the textbook, but he had not yet found his voice. The turning point came when he stopped relying on the books and started turning to his land for answers. He began a process of what he calls "diseducation" — unlearning the rigid formulas of academic oenology and replacing them with observation, intuition, and a deep trust in the vineyard's own intelligence. By 2015, his wines were "simply on a different level" — no longer textbook exercises but wines of terruño, seeking drinkability without compromising depth and complexity.

In 2009, the family moved the winery to the Can Rimondet farmhouse in San Juan Samora — a building from 1520 that was the first cooperative winery in the Penedès. They stayed there until 2019, when they relocated again to their current home: a century-old winery in Sant Llorenç d'Hortons, in the heart of the Alt Penedès Montserratí. Today, the team is a family affair: Jordi Parera (father), Rubén Parera, Jordi Puigmacià, and Kike Vila — agricultural engineers, winemakers, and lifelong farmers working side by side. Rubén also runs HumanVins, a commercial representation company, and Bar Salvatge, a natural wine bar. He is the ideologist, alongside Impulsa Fundraising, of the social project Verema Solidària. The story of Rubén Parera is the story of a man who learned everything in order to forget it — who mastered the rules in order to break them, and who found that the best wines are not made in the classroom but in the vineyard, with dirty hands and an open mind.

The guiding philosophy of Rubén Parera is "diseducation" — a deliberate, conscious unlearning of the rigid formulas and corrective techniques of academic oenology in favour of observation, intuition, and trust in the vineyard. Rubén is a trained agricultural engineer and winemaker who spent more than 20 vintages learning the rules — and then chose to break them. His evolution from textbook precision to land-driven intuition is the defining arc of Finca Parera. Today, he is committed to winemaking that expresses the terruño — the specific character of the Montserratí's calcareous clay soils, high altitude, and old vines — without artifice or intervention. His approach is deliberately minimal: biodynamic farming, hand harvest, indigenous yeasts, low to zero added sulfur, no fining, no filtration, and a variety of vessels that allow the wine to evolve naturally.

The methodology is simple and fundamentally non-invasive. All grapes are hand-harvested from dry-farmed, biodynamic vines. In the cellar, cement tanks are the primary vessel — Rubén's preferred material for fermentation and aging, providing thermal stability, gentle micro-oxygenation, and a neutral environment that does not impose wood or steel character on the wine. He also uses clay amphorae, barrels, stainless steel tubs, and demijohns — each chosen for the specific needs of the cuvée. Fermentation occurs spontaneously with indigenous yeasts. For the whites, some are direct-pressed and aged in cement or steel (like the fresh Clar), while others see skin contact or acacia aging (like the Sassó, aged in acacia wood — Rubén's first wine without added SO2). For the reds, macerations are gentle and intuitive, preserving the bright fruit and delicate tannins of varieties like Sumoll and Ull de Llebre. Sulfur is kept to an absolute minimum — many cuvées have zero added SO2, and those that do receive only tiny amounts (as low as 10–13 mg/L).

The special cuvées are made with the same care and minimal intervention. Sassó is 100% Xarel·lo aged in acacia — the first wine Rubén made without adding any sulfur, and still one of his most distinctive. Faust 1.2 and 1.4 are long-aging blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Ull de Llebre, and Grenache Tinturier — wines of depth, structure, and patience. Khrónos is 100% Sumoll, one of Penedès' most important indigenous red varieties, made with extended aging and minimal intervention. Brutal is an experimental cuvée of Gewürztraminer and Sitges Malvasia — a wine that pushes boundaries and demonstrates Rubén's refusal to be constrained by convention. Each cuvée is a distinct expression of a specific grape, a specific vintage, and a specific moment in Rubén's ongoing conversation with his land.

The cellar is not a technological facility; it is a century-old winery — a modest, historic space where cement tanks sit alongside clay amphorae and old barrels, where Rubén and his family do the work by hand and by intuition. There is no consultant recommending corrective enzymes, no recipe that overrides the vintage, no pressure to produce polished, sterile bottles. There is only Rubén, the 10 hectares, the calcareous clay, and the patience to let each wine take the time it needs. The result is a portfolio of wines that are honest, precise, and alive — wines that have earned a place on the wine lists of discerning restaurants and shops from Barcelona to New York. As one importer wrote: "Long live the diseducation of Ruben Parera."

Rubén Parera is not merely a winemaker; he is a philosopher of the vine — a man who has articulated a new way of thinking about natural wine in Penedès, one of Europe's most historic but also most industrialised wine regions. In an era when much of Penedès has been dominated by mass-produced Cava and high-yielding varieties, Rubén represents something rare and vital: a bridge between the deepest traditions of Catalan farming and the most forward-thinking practices of natural winemaking. He is proving that Penedès is not merely the home of supermarket sparkling wine, but a region capable of producing wines of genuine terruño, originality, and drinkability — provided the winemaker has the courage to unlearn the textbook and listen to the land.

The legacy of Finca Parera extends beyond the bottle. Rubén has become a reference point for the natural wine movement in Catalonia — a producer who demonstrates that biodynamic farming, indigenous yeasts, minimal sulfur, and cement-tank aging can coexist with commercial viability and international recognition. His wines are found on the lists of discerning restaurants and shops from Barcelona to New York. His approach — Demeter-certified biodynamics, hand harvest from vines up to 78 years old, spontaneous fermentation, low to zero sulfur, no fining, no filtration — has influenced a generation of younger producers in Penedès and beyond. And his concept of "diseducation" — the deliberate unlearning of academic oenology in favour of land-driven intuition — has become a rallying cry for a new generation of winemakers who believe that the best wines come not from the classroom but from the vineyard.

The future of Finca Parera is tied to the future of Rubén's ongoing conversation with his land. As the estate continues to evolve — new experiments with amphorae and acacia, new cuvées that push boundaries, new collaborations through HumanVins and Bar Salvatge — the core remains unchanged: biodynamic farming, minimal intervention, and a deep trust in the terruño. The story of Rubén Parera is the story of a man who learned everything in order to forget it, who mastered the rules in order to break them, and who found that the best wines are made not with technique but with intuition — with dirty hands, an open mind, and a profound respect for the 10 hectares of calcareous clay that his family has been farming since 1892. It is a story that is still being written — one bottle, one vintage, one act of diseducation at a time.