A Burgundian Dream in the Penedès
Mas Candí is the creation of Ramón Jané and Mercè Cuscó — plus the indelible imprint of their friend Toni Carbó — a winery founded in 2006 at the gates of the Massís del Garraf Natural Park in Les Gunyoles, Avinyonet del Penedès. Spanning approximately 40 hectares of certified organic and biodynamically-farmed family vineyards across Les Gunyoles, Guardiola de Font-Rubí, Plà del Penedès and Torrelavit, the estate is a deliberate anomaly in a region still dominated by industrial Cava: a small, quality-obsessed project that bottles only indigenous and recovered ancestral varieties, farms with draft horses and grazing sheep, and ages its flagship Xarel·lo in four different woods simultaneously. Ramón studied viticulture and oenology before interning in Burgundy and Champagne, returning with a Burgundian model of terroir-specific parcel selection that he applied to his grandparents' Xarel·lo vines. The result is a portfolio split between the structured, terroir-expressive Mas Candí line — including the iconic QX aged in acacia, chestnut, French and American oak — and the radical, zero-sulfite Ramón Jané Viticultor project. From the 60-year-old Xarel·lo of Desig to the 100% Sumoll Corpinnat rosé Prohibit, from the recovered Mandó and Cannonau to the ancestral-method pet-nats made in collaboration with La Salada, Mas Candí proves that four friends with a shared dream can redraw the map of the Penedès — one indigenous grape at a time.
Four Friends & the Dream of the Bottle
The story of Mas Candí begins with a grandfather who stopped bottling. Ramón Jané's grandfather used to make wine on the family estate of Mas Rossell in Guardiola de Font-Rubí, but over the years it became more profitable to sell the grapes to the large houses of Penedès — a familiar fate for small Catalan growers who tended the land but surrendered the bottle. Ramón, who studied Viticulture, Oenology and Marketing at Camp Joliu in the Baix Penedès, was not willing to accept this fate. He interned in Burgundy and Champagne, absorbing the parcel-specific, terroir-obsessed model of the Côte d'Or, and returned with a conviction: the family grapes deserved to be bottled, and the family name deserved to be on the label.
In 2006, Ramón joined forces with three friends from his studies — Mercè Cuscó, Toni Carbó, and Ramón Galimany — to launch Mas Candí. The partnership was cemented on a firm Catalan handshake: they would pool their pockets of ancestral land, share a cellar, and produce wines that reflected their collective conviction. Mercè brought 13 hectares surrounding the farmhouse in Les Gunyoles, at the entrance to the Garraf Natural Park, land her family had cultivated since the 17th century. Ramón contributed 27 hectares from his parents in Guardiola de Font-Rubí, Plà del Penedès and Torrelavit. Together they had the raw material; what they needed was the courage to use it differently.
The project was radical from the start. In a region producing 220 million bottles of Cava annually — the majority bottled by three companies — four young friends decided to go small, go organic, and go indigenous. They chose to preserve old Xarel·lo vines that their grandparents had planted, to recover ancestral varieties that had not been harvested since the 1800s, and to farm without chemicals in a region where chemical agriculture was the norm. They were not merely making wine; they were making a statement — that the Penedès could produce wines of exceptional quality from its own grapes, on its own soils, in its own voice.
The partnership evolved naturally. Toni Carbó eventually split off to focus on his own project, Celler La Salada, but the bond remained unbroken — most of Toni's wines are still made at Mas Candí, and the two Ramóns continue to compete together in the Spanish Blind Tasting Championships, often placing second. Today, Mas Candí lies firmly in the hands of Ramón and Mercè — now husband and wife — with their son Jordi joining the project. The winery they built in 2004-2005 was expanded in 2013 with a basement cellar, and the dream that began with four friends and a shared fermentation vat has become one of the most respected small estates in Catalonia.
"We were convinced that if we continued cultivating xarel-lo like our grandparents, the result would be wines of exceptional quality."
— Ramón Jané, Mas Candí
Les Gunyoles & the Two Terroirs
The Mas Candí estate is divided between two distinct terroirs that together provide the complexity and breadth of a Burgundian domaine. The first is Les Gunyoles, in Avinyonet del Penedès, at the very gates of the Massís del Garraf Natural Park — a coastal limestone mountain range that rises from the western Penedès and plunges toward the Mediterranean. Here, Mercè's family has cultivated land since the 17th century, and the 13 hectares surrounding the farmhouse sit on calcareous clay soils rich in ancient marine fossils — the seabed raised up by geological time, now producing wines of salinity, freshness, and mineral tension. The proximity to the sea — barely 10 kilometres in a straight line — provides a moderating influence: cooler summer nights, milder winter days, and a constant maritime breeze that tempers the heat of the Catalan interior.
The second terroir is inland: Guardiola de Font-Rubí, Plà del Penedès and Torrelavit, where Ramón's family farms 27 hectares on the higher, drier plateau of the Alt Penedès. These vineyards sit on limestone and clay soils at greater altitude, with a more continental climate that produces wines of greater structure, depth, and ageing potential. The combination of the two terroirs — coastal Garraf and inland Alt Penedès — gives Ramón and Mercè a palette of textures and flavours that few small estates can match: the freshness and salinity of the coast; the power and concentration of the interior; the old-vine depth of both.
The farming is certified organic by CCPAE and guided by biodynamic principles. The soils are ploughed with draft horses — a practice that compacts the earth less than tractors and preserves the fragile root systems of old vines. Between the rows, grass is left to grow long and is "mowed" by grazing sheep, who provide natural fertilisation and vegetal compost. No chemical fertilisers, antifungal treatments or pesticides are used. The team seeks to reproduce the balance of a forest ecosystem — where trees grow without chemical intervention, feeding on leaves transformed by soil microorganisms. This is not merely sustainable farming; it is regenerative viticulture that aims to return the soil to the condition it was in when the Cuscó family first broke ground in the 1600s.
The varieties are a living archive of Catalan viticultural history. Xarel·lo dominates, accounting for roughly 50% of the plantings and including plots of up to 60 years old — bush-trained vines with deep roots that extract strong mineral characteristics from the limestone. Macabeo and Parellada — the traditional Cava trio — provide blending material for the Corpinnat sparkling wines. Sumoll — the great forgotten red of Catalonia — is preserved and celebrated, particularly in the Prohibit rosé. Mandó — another nearly extinct variety — is sourced from a vineyard near Girona and produces the Vincle red. Garnatxa Blanca, Malvasia de Sitges, and Trobat — whites of the Mediterranean — are tended with the same care. And in a nod to historical curiosity, Ramón and Mercè have recovered Cannonau (a Garnacha mutation taken to Sardinia by Catalan colonists) and Mónica (also from Sardinia), planting experimental vineyards that connect the Penedès to its Mediterranean past. Even the Cabernet Sauvignon — planted by Ramón's father in 1984 in a head-pruned vineyard — is treated as a family heirloom rather than an international interloper.
Mas Candí is located at the gates of the Massís del Garraf Natural Park in Les Gunyoles, Avinyonet del Penedès, with additional vineyards in Guardiola de Font-Rubí, Plà del Penedès and Torrelavit. Founded in 2006 by Ramón Jané, Mercè Cuscó, Toni Carbó and Ramón Galimany. ~40 hectares of certified organic and biodynamically-farmed family vineyards. A pioneer of estate-grown Corpinnat and ancestral variety recovery in the Penedès.
Les Gunyoles: calcareous clay soils rich in ancient marine fossils, coastal influence from the Garraf massif, 10km from the sea, cooler nights and milder winters. Guardiola/Plà/Torrelavit: limestone and clay soils at higher altitude, more continental climate, greater structure and depth. Two terroirs, one estate — a Burgundian model of parcel-specific viticulture in the Penedès.
Certified organic (CCPAE). Biodynamic principles. Draft horses plough the soils to protect old-vine root systems. Sheep graze between rows, providing natural fertilisation and vegetal compost. No chemical fertilisers, pesticides or antifungals. Forest-ecosystem balance sought. Hand-harvesting in small boxes. The goal is regenerative viticulture that honours the 17th-century origins of the Cuscó family's stewardship.
The winery was built in 2004-2005 in Les Gunyoles and expanded in 2013 with a basement cellar. The flagship QX is aged in four woods simultaneously — acacia, chestnut, French oak, and American oak — a Burgundian-inspired approach to Xarel·lo that is unique in the Penedès. The cellar also hosts vinifications for Toni Carbó's La Salada project, maintaining the friendship that founded the estate.
The Burgundy Model & the Four Woods
The guiding philosophy of Mas Candí is expressed in a single, Burgundian-inspired principle: the wine is made in the vineyard, and the cellar's job is to reveal what the vineyard has given. Ramón Jané is profoundly influenced by his internships in Burgundy and Champagne — not by the glamour of the grand crus, but by the meticulous parcel selection, the respect for indigenous varieties, and the conviction that a small estate can produce wines of world-class quality if it refuses to compromise. This is not a romantic notion; it is a practical methodology that governs every decision from pruning to bottling.
The most distinctive expression of this philosophy is the QX — Quatre Xarel·los. The wine is made from old-vine Xarel·lo (54 to 60 years old) sourced from four distinct parcels that Ramón and Mercè have identified as the estate's highest-quality sites. But the number four does not refer only to the vineyards; it refers also to the four types of wood in which the wine is aged: French oak, American oak, chestnut, and acacia. Each wood contributes a different textural and aromatic component — French oak provides structure and spice; American oak adds vanilla and breadth; chestnut contributes a distinctive tannic grip and herbal nuance; acacia offers floral lift and a silky mouthfeel. The four wines are blended after ageing to create a Xarel·lo of extraordinary complexity — a wine that was rated one of the three best whites in Catalonia by the 2011 Catalan Wine Guide and that remains the estate's most emblematic bottling.
The Corpinnat sparkling wines represent the estate's political and philosophical stance. Mas Candí is a member of Corpinnat — the collective brand of quality sparkling wine producers who broke away from the industrial DO Cava to guarantee 100% estate-grown, hand-harvested, long-aged sparkling wines made only in the Penedès. The flagship Corpinnat Brut Nature is a blend of 60% Xarel·lo, 20% Macabeo, 5% Parellada and 15% Sumoll — the inclusion of Sumoll in a sparkling blend is almost unheard of, and it gives the wine a distinctive pithy grip and salty finish. The Indomable is 50% old-vine Xarel·lo and 50% old-vine Sumoll, aged a minimum of five years on lees with zero dosage — perhaps the most assertive and ambitious wine in the portfolio. The Prohibit is a Brut Nature rosé of 100% old-vine Sumoll, aged 48+ months on lees — one of only two biodynamic rosés made entirely from Sumoll in the entire region. And the Segunyola — named after an ancient name for Les Gunyoles — is a Blanc de Blancs of 100% Xarel·lo from 65-year-old vines, the estate's most elevated sparkling expression.
The natural wine project — bottled under the label Ramón Jané Viticultor — represents the estate's radical, zero-sulfite face. Inspired by a trip to the Dive Bouteille in France, Ramón and Mercè began experimenting with sulfite-free wines in 2006, and the project has since become a parallel line of unmanipulated, unfiltered, and unpretentious wines. The A la Borina is an ancestral-method skin-ferment sparkling of Garnatxa Blanca, Malvasia, Sumoll, Macabeo and Moscatel — two weeks on skins, bottled with no additions. The Ovella Negra — "Black Sheep" — is a skin-fermented Garnatxa Blanca and Malvasia de Sitges made with no SO₂, no fining, no filtration. The Tinc Set and Roig Boig are ancestral-method pet-nats produced in collaboration with La Salada — the former a white of Xarel·lo and Parellada, the latter a rosé of Macabeo, Xarel·lo, Parellada and Mandó. These wines are not polished; they are honest, living, and deliberately unpretentious — a counterpoint to the more structured Mas Candí line.
Indigenous Yeasts, Four Woods & Zero Sulfites
The guiding principle of Mas Candí's winemaking is that the cellar should be a transparent lens, not a distorting mirror. Their approach — organic and biodynamic farming, hand-harvesting into small boxes, vineyard sorting, spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts, parcel-specific vinification, ageing in four woods (acacia, chestnut, French oak, American oak) for QX, extended lees ageing for Corpinnat (up to 5+ years), zero dosage for the Brut Nature range, and a parallel zero-sulfite natural line with no fining or filtration — is not a rejection of tradition but a deeper application of it. The Burgundy model provides the intellectual framework; the Penedès provides the grapes; and the four woods provide the textural vocabulary. The result is a portfolio that spans the entire spectrum from the most rigorous, terroir-specific classicism to the most radical, unadorned naturalism — all united by a common refusal to add anything that the vineyard did not provide.
The Corpinnat, the QX & the Zero Sulfites
Mas Candí produces approximately 60,000 bottles per year from 40 hectares of certified organic and biodynamically-farmed vineyards in Les Gunyoles, Guardiola de Font-Rubí, Plà del Penedès and Torrelavit. The portfolio is divided into three distinct lines: the Mas Candí range — structured, terroir-expressive still and sparkling wines that honour the family's Burgundian inspiration; the Corpinnat range — long-aged, zero-dosage sparkling wines that represent the estate's break from industrial Cava; and the Ramón Jané Viticultor range — zero-sulfite, unfiltered, unmanipulated natural wines that capture the wild, unpretentious side of the Penedès. The wines span sparkling, white, orange, rosé, and red — all united by a common commitment to indigenous varieties, organic farming, and the conviction that the Penedès can speak in its own voice. The following represents the core cuvées as they have emerged from Ramón and Mercè's two-decade project in Avinyonet.
"We were convinced that if we continued cultivating xarel-lo like our grandparents, the result would be wines of exceptional quality."
— Ramón Jané, Mas Candí
The Burgundian Handshake & the Corpinnat Rebellion
To understand Mas Candí, one must understand that it is not merely a winery; it is a Burgundian dream realised in Catalan soil, a rebellion against industrial scale, and a friendship preserved in liquid form. The four friends who founded the estate in 2006 — Ramón, Mercè, Toni, and Ramón Galimany — were not businessmen seeking market share; they were young viticultors who had studied together, tasted together, and decided that the Penedès deserved better than anonymous bulk juice and homogenised Cava. The handshake that sealed the partnership was not a legal contract; it was a Catalan pact of mutual respect, shared labour, and common conviction. Even after Toni split off to create La Salada, the bond remained — his wines are still made at Mas Candí, their children play together, and they still compete as a team in blind tasting championships.
The identity is defined by duality — two terroirs, two winemakers, two philosophies coexisting under one roof. The Mas Candí line is the Burgundian face: parcel-specific, wood-aged, terroir-expressive, and rigorously classic. The Ramón Jané Viticultor line is the natural face: zero sulfites, skin-contact, ancestral-method, and unapologetically wild. This duality is not a marketing strategy; it is an honest reflection of Ramón's two educations — the formal training in Burgundy and Champagne, and the epiphany at the Dive Bouteille in France that opened him to the world of natural wine. He did not choose between the two; he embraced both, allowing each to inform the other. The result is an estate that can produce a 109-month undisgorged Cava and a zero-sulfite skin-ferment pet-nat in the same cellar, with the same hands, from the same vineyards.
The future of Mas Candí is tied to the continued health of its two terroirs, the deepening of biodynamic practices across the 40 hectares, and the gradual recovery of more ancestral varieties. The Corpinnat range will continue to grow as more consumers discover the quality gap between industrial Cava and estate-grown, long-aged sparkling wine. The QX will continue to be the flagship — a wine that proves Xarel·lo can achieve Burgundian complexity when handled with parcel-specific ambition. The Desig will continue to be the calling card — a fresh, accessible Xarel·lo that honours the 60-year-old vines. The natural wine range will continue to push boundaries, with new experiments in amphora, extended skin contact, and zero-intervention winemaking. And the friendship with La Salada will continue — a reminder that the Penedès is not merely a wine region but a community of growers who share equipment, knowledge, and the occasional blind tasting trophy.
In an age of increasing industrialisation in wine — of global varieties, engineered yeasts, and corporate consolidation — Mas Candí stands as a compelling alternative, not because it rejects modernity but because it has embraced a deeper modernity: one that values four friends and a handshake over a boardroom of consultants, draft horses and sheep over tractors and herbicides, 60-year-old Xarel·lo over young, high-yielding plantations, four woods over standardised oak chips, Corpinnat over DO Cava, zero sulfites over standardised stability, recovered Mandó and Cannonau over international replacements, the Burgundy model over the Penedès status quo, and the specific voice of Garraf limestone and Guardiola clay over the standardised replication of a global style. Mas Candí is not merely making wine; it is proving that a teenager's dream of bottling his grandfather's grapes can become a 60,000-bottle manifesto, that four friends can redraw the map of a region, that Xarel·lo aged in acacia, chestnut, French and American oak can rival the great whites of the Côte de Beaune, that Sumoll can produce world-class sparkling rosé, and that the simplest philosophy — continue cultivating like our grandparents — is often the most profound. From the 2006 first vintage to the 2024 zero-sulfite experiments, from Les Gunyoles to Guardiola, from the four woods to the ancestral method: all united in one bottle, one family, one unanswerable argument for the possibility of organic, biodynamic, parcel-specific, zero-sulfur, passionately honest wine from the heart of the Penedès.
Ramón Jané, Mercè Cuscó, Toni Carbó, and Ramón Galimany — four friends who studied viticulture and oenology together, interned in Burgundy and Champagne, and founded Mas Candí in 2006 on a firm Catalan handshake. The partnership was never a legal contract; it was a pact of shared labour and common conviction. Even after Toni split off to create La Salada, the bond remained — his wines are still made at Mas Candí, and they still compete together in blind tasting championships. This is a winery where friendship is part of the terroir.
Ramón's internships in Burgundy provided the intellectual framework: parcel-specific selection, indigenous varieties, terroir expression. The Corpinnat membership provided the political framework: a break from industrial Cava, a guarantee of 100% estate-grown, hand-harvested, long-aged sparkling wine. The two frameworks unite in a single mission: to prove that the Penedès can produce world-class wine from its own grapes, in its own voice, without compromise. The four woods, the zero dosage, the ancestral varieties — all tools in a single, Burgundian-Catalan toolbox.