The Amsterdam Couple, the Crowdfunded Vineyard & the Song That Named the Wine
Dido and Jurriaan Morsink are not winemakers who inherited an estate or followed a family tradition — they are a Dutch couple from Amsterdam who crowdfunded their way into one of Catalonia's wildest landscapes. After five years of traveling the wine world — from South Africa to Chile, from Australia to Catalunya — they settled in Rabós, a medieval village in the Alt Empordà, where they bought 9.5 hectares of vineyards in the Albera Natural Park through a crowdfunding campaign. They live off-grid among their vines — solar power, well water, and a small house — farming biodynamically on schist and slate soils battered by the fierce Tramontana wind. Their wines are named after songs and albums — Juicy, Hunky Dory, Hurdy Gurdy, Doolittle — because for Dido and Jurriaan, wine is not a product but a soundtrack. They add nothing, filter nothing, and let nature lead. Their motto is disarmingly simple: "We make wine like we live: wild, free and deeply connected to the land."
The Amsterdam Dream, the Movie & the Internship That Changed Everything
Dido Voorma and Jurriaan Morsink are not the product of a wine dynasty. They are a Dutch couple from Amsterdam who, like many of their generation, started with a dream planted by a cheesy movie. "Really bad movies… like A Good Year," Dido laughs. "But that planted a seed in our brain. Wouldn't it be nice to live in the countryside and make wine?" Jurriaan was an engineer who had built a low-impact travel agency for Southeast Asia. Dido was pursuing her master's in Cultural Anthropology in South Africa, where she conducted research on the Swartland Independent Producers — the renegade natural winemakers of the Cape who were reclaiming old vineyards and making wine without rules. The independent winemakers she encountered inspired them to follow their own dream. As Jurriaan remembers: "We thought: we have to start now because if you start when you're fifty you won't have the energy."
And so they began to travel — not as tourists, but as interns and harvest hands. They worked in South Africa, Chile, Australia, and Catalunya, learning from big industrial companies and small boutique wineries alike. They worked for one whole year in a vineyard of a bigger company in the same region, to really find out if they were capable of taking care of a vineyard full time. But it was their internship with Joan Ramon Escoda in Conca de Barberà that changed everything. Working with Escoda opened their eyes to the world of natural wine — the understanding that wine is made in the vineyard, not the cellar, and that the work in the cellar should be about guiding the grapes into juice and eventually wine, without intervention. They were hooked. They never looked back.
After five years of traveling, learning, and tasting, Dido and Jurriaan knew two things: they wanted to make natural wine, and they wanted to do it in Catalunya — a region that had conquered their hearts. Through a crowdfunding campaign, they raised the funds to buy 10 hectares of planted vines in the natural reserve of Albera, in the Alt Empordà. The vineyards were between 10 and 17 years old, planted on schist and slate soils, battered by the Tramontana wind, and surrounded by the wild beauty of the Pyrenees foothills. In 2018, they made their first vintage from their own grapes — a moment that marked the birth of Vinyes Tortuga and a new chapter in the natural wine story of Catalonia.
What followed was a whirlwind of restoration, conversion, and creativity. They focused on restoring the vineyards, converting them to biodynamics, and grafting new (white) varieties onto existing rootstocks. They moved into a small house among the vines, powered entirely by solar panels and drawing water from their own well. They set up their winery in an old cooperative building in Rabós — a medieval town with iconic cement tanks that now house their wild, free wines. And they decided that every wine they made would be named after a song or album they loved — because wine, like music, is about feeling, not analysis. As Dido says: "To keep learning and to stay curious, that's what makes life fun."
Alt Empordà, the Albera Natural Park & the Tramontana Hand
Rabós is a small medieval village in the Alt Empordà — the northernmost wine region of Catalonia, where the Pyrenees meet the Mediterranean and the wild Costa Brava begins. For Dido and Jurriaan, Rabós is not merely a terroir but a frontier — a place of rugged beauty, fierce winds, and a winemaking tradition that stretches back centuries but has only recently been rediscovered by the natural wine world. The village sits within the Albera Natural Park, a protected area of extraordinary biodiversity that spans the border between Spain and France, its hills covered in ancient olive trees, oak forests, and the diverse flora and fauna that shape the environment where the vines grow deep into the rocky soils.
The vineyards of Vinyes Tortuga are perched in the Pyrenees foothills at approximately 130 metres above sea level, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The soils are a dramatic mix of schist and slate — metamorphic rocks that fracture into thin, shimmering plates, providing superb drainage and a distinctive mineral, almost smoky character to the wines. Schist, with its high mica content, reflects heat and weathers into a soil that is poor in nutrients but rich in mineral complexity. Slate, darker and more compact, retains warmth and contributes a stony, graphite-like backbone. Together, these two soils create a terroir that is brutal in its demands and brilliant in its rewards — forcing the vines to struggle, to dig deep, and to produce grapes of concentrated flavour and fierce personality.
The climate is Mediterranean with a continental edge — hot, dry summers and mild winters — but it is dominated by one overwhelming force: the Tramontana. This dry, intense, rebellious northern wind sweeps down from the Pyrenees and across the Empordà plain, heading towards the Mediterranean Sea. It shapes the landscape, forges the character of the people, and defines the wines. The Tramontana can be gentle and cooling, bringing freshness and balance to the grapes, or it can be a gale-force battering ram that tests the resilience of every vine, every vinegrower, and every bottle. Dido and Jurriaan have learned to work with it — harvesting relatively early to capture the natural acidity that the wind preserves, and planting cover crops between the vines to protect the soil from erosion when the Tramontana hits in winter.
The cover crops are not merely a farming technique; they are a philosophy. Dido and Jurriaan sow fava beans, lupines, and vetches — all nitrogen-fixing plants that add fertility to the soil, attract beneficial insects, and create a living ecosystem among the vines. When the fierce winds hit, the plants protect the soil from erosion. In spring, when they are mown, the plant matter provides mulch, helping to keep the soil moist and fertile. And in turn, the living soil attracts wildlife — birds, insects, and the fat earthworms that Jurriaan considers the ultimate sign of success. "That's the dream," he says — not a critic's score, not a gold medal, but a fat worm in the ground. For Vinyes Tortuga, this is not farming by manual; it is farming by observation, patience, and joy.
Rabós is a small medieval town in the Alt Empordà, roughly two hours north of Barcelona, nestled between the windswept Costa Brava and the towering Pyrenees. It is a place of narrow streets, ancient stone houses, and a winemaking tradition that dates back centuries. For Dido and Jurriaan, Rabós offered something that no other region could: a wild, protected landscape within the Albera Natural Park, affordable land accessible through crowdfunding, and a community that was open to new ideas. The old cooperative building in the centre of the village — with its iconic cement tanks — became their bodega, a space that now houses not only their winemaking but also the Analogic Restaurant, run by Chef Borja Tomas Munells since 2023. Rabós is not a place for tourists seeking luxury; it is a place for those who seek authenticity, wildness, and the sound of the Tramontana.
The Albera Natural Park is a protected area that spans the border between Spain and France, covering the easternmost foothills of the Pyrenees. It is a landscape of extraordinary biodiversity — oak forests, maquis scrub, ancient olive trees, and a rich community of flora and fauna that includes rare species such as the Mediterranean tortoise (the namesake of Vinyes Tortuga). For Dido and Jurriaan, the park is not merely a backdrop but a partner — a living ecosystem that shapes the microclimate, protects the vines from the worst of the heat, and provides the biodiversity that makes organic and biodynamic farming possible. The park's status as a protected area means that the land around their vineyards cannot be developed, ensuring that their terroir will remain wild and unspoiled for generations to come.
The soils of Vinyes Tortuga are a dramatic mix of schist and slate — two metamorphic rocks that define the mineral character of the Empordà. Schist, with its high mica content, weathers into a coarse, free-draining soil that forces vines to dig deep for water and nutrients. It reflects heat, aids ripening, and contributes a subtle, almost smoky minerality to the wine. Slate, darker and more compact, retains warmth and provides a stony, graphite-like backbone that gives the wines their structure and depth. Together, these two soils create a terroir that is poor in organic matter but rich in mineral complexity — a soil that demands struggle and rewards it with wines of unmistakable character. For Dido and Jurriaan, the stoniness they detect in their wines is not a flaw but a signature — a taste of the Albera in every sip.
The Tramontana is the defining force of the Empordà — a dry, intense, rebellious northern wind that sweeps down from the Pyrenees and across the Mediterranean coast. It can be gentle and cooling, bringing freshness and balance to the grapes, or it can be a gale-force battering ram that tests the resilience of every vine and every vinegrower. For Dido and Jurriaan, the Tramontana is both a challenge and a gift. It reduces humidity, preventing fungal diseases and allowing them to farm without chemicals. It preserves acidity in the grapes, allowing them to harvest early and make wines of brightness and energy. And it shapes the landscape — the twisted vines, the battered olive trees, the resilient people. The Tramontana is not merely weather; it is a character in the story of every wine that Vinyes Tortuga makes — a wild, free, untamable presence that demands respect and rewards patience.
No Additives, No Filters & the Soundtrack Hand
The winemaking philosophy of Vinyes Tortuga is distilled into a single sentence: "We make wine like we live: wild, free and deeply connected to the land." It is not a marketing slogan; it is the daily practice of a couple who believe that the best thing a winemaker can do is listen — to the vineyard, to the wind, to the music, and to the wine itself. Dido and Jurriaan do not follow recipes. They do not use selected yeasts. They do not add enzymes, tannins, or corrective acids. They do not filter. They do not fine. They do not stabilise. And they most certainly do not add sulfur — not at harvest, not during fermentation, not at bottling. The result is wine that is alive, evolving, and unmistakably honest — a direct translation of grape, place, and vintage into liquid, bottled by gravity and sealed with a song.
Their approach in the cellar is as eclectic as their record collection. They experiment with a range of fermentation techniques — carbonic maceration, whole-cluster fermentation, direct pressing, and foot-stomping (pigeage) — depending on the wine, the vintage, and their intuition. For Hunky Dory, their favourite cuvée, whole bunches of Garnacha are placed in bins for five days of carbonic maceration, after which Dido and Jurriaan dance on them (literally — foot-stomping is part of the process) before pressing and aging in stainless steel. The result is a wine that is funky and fruit-forward, with structure coming from the whole-bunch fermentation and a stability that makes it, in Jurriaan's words, "a very stable wine, it ferments easily, has a lot of fruit but also structure coming from the whole-bunch. We can't get enough of it!"
For Juicy — their strawberry-hued pét-nat named after The Notorious B.I.G. — they prefer traditional direct or whole-cluster pressing of Garnacha and Merlot, capturing the light, fresh, low-alcohol character that makes it drink like its namesake. For Doolittle — named after the Pixies album — they push into even more adventurous territory: the wine undergoes maturation under flor in amphora, a veil of indigenous yeast and bacteria that forms on the surface of the ageing wine, protecting it from oxidation and creating nutty, umami notes and a pronounced dryness reminiscent of Jura Vin Jaune or sherry. It is a technique rarely seen in Catalonia, and it is exactly the kind of audacious decision that defines Vinyes Tortuga.
The maturation vessels are as diverse as the techniques: stainless steel for neutrality and freshness, oak for texture and breath, and clay amphora for micro-oxidation without oak influence. All of the wines are bottled by gravity, with no filtration, no fining agents, no stabilisers, and no added sulfites. Sometimes they employ a pick-and-mix of techniques to get the right blend of flavours — balancing time-consuming methods like hand-destemming (pushing grape bunches over a large sieve with grape-sized holes) with more cost-effective ones. They are a small start-up, after all — a crowdfunded dream that demands creativity as much as it demands discipline. What unites every cuvée is the Vinyes Tortuga signature: juicy, light, drinkable, and full of energy — wines that pulse with the rhythm of the land and the beat of the song that named them.
Zero Additives, the Covenant of Curiosity & the Soundtrack of the Vineyard
The guiding principle of Vinyes Tortuga is not a rulebook but a relationship — a covenant between the winemakers, the vines, and the listener. No added sulfites means that every bottle is alive, evolving, and vulnerable — a snapshot of a specific vintage, a specific song, and a specific moment in time. The indigenous yeasts carry the microbial fingerprint of the Albera. The hand-harvesting preserves the integrity of the fruit. The gravity bottling ensures gentleness. And the absence of filtration, clarification, and correction means that every wine is a pure, unmediated expression of grape and place — with all the cloudiness, unpredictability, and brilliance that natural wine entails. For Dido and Jurriaan, this is not dogma but the only way they know how to work: with curiosity, with music, with the stubborn conviction that the best wines are made by those who have the courage to stay wild — one harvest, one song, one honest bottle at a time.
Juicy, Hunky Dory, Hurdy Gurdy & the Playlist Hand
The Vinyes Tortuga portfolio is a reflection of a couple's record collection and their refusal to take wine seriously — a collection of cuvées that span red, rosé, sparkling, and oxidative, made from biodynamically farmed vines on schist and slate soils in the Albera Natural Park, all united by spontaneous fermentation, no additives, no filtration, no clarification, and a philosophy of wild, free creativity that privileges the voice of the grape over the hand of the winemaker. Dido and Jurriaan's wines are not polished commercial products — they are living, evolving expressions of a specific place, a specific vintage, and a specific song, each one named after the music that soundtracked its making. Production is approximately 13,000 to 15,000 bottles per year. The cuvées are distributed through specialist natural wine importers and shops across Europe and beyond.
The Amsterdam Couple, the Albera Arrival & the New Wave of Empordà
Vinyes Tortuga is not merely a winery; it is a manifesto written in music and schist — a project that has redefined what it means to make wine in one of Catalonia's most historically overlooked regions by refusing to conform, refusing to add, and refusing to grow up. In an era when the wine industry is obsessed with pedigree, appellation, and critical scores, Dido and Jurriaan have demonstrated that the most profound wines sometimes come from a Dutch couple who crowdfunded a vineyard, named their wines after hip-hop and rock songs, and live off-grid in a natural park. They have proven that Garnacha — often reduced to bulk wine in the Empordà — can be a wine of funky joy and whole-bunch structure when farmed biodynamically and made without additives. That a pét-nat of Garnacha and Merlot can be named after The Notorious B.I.G. and still be taken seriously. That Cabernet Franc, rarely seen in Catalonia, can produce a wine of spice and earthiness that rivals the Loire. And that a wine aged under flor in amphora — named after a Pixies album — is not a gimmick but a genuine exploration of what Catalan wine can be.
The legacy of Vinyes Tortuga is the legacy of the outsider who arrives with curiosity and stays with love. Dido and Jurriaan did not come to the Empordà as heirs or investors; they came as seekers — inspired by a bad movie, shaped by a South African master's thesis, and transformed by an internship with Joan Ramon Escoda. Their choice to live off-grid — solar power, well water, a small house among the vines — is not a marketing strategy; it is an act of fidelity to the land they fell in love with. The old cooperative building in Rabós is not merely a cellar; it is a community hub — home to the Analogic Restaurant, where Chef Borja Tomas Munells pairs locally sourced ingredients with their natural wines, creating a space where wine is not just a drink but a way of life. Their record collection is not merely decoration; it is a philosophy — the belief that wine, like music, should make you feel something before it makes you think.
The future of the project is tied to the future of natural wine as an act of joyful rebellion — to the growing recognition that the greatest wines are not always made by those who inherit, but by those who arrive with a dream and a crowdfunding page: the anthropologists, the engineers, the music lovers who see possibility where others see convention. As Juicy continues to prove that pét-nat can be both playful and serious, as Hunky Dory demonstrates that carbonic maceration can produce wines of real structure, as Doolittle pushes the boundaries of what Catalan oxidative wine can be, and as the Albera Natural Park protects their terroir from the encroachment of industrial agriculture, Dido and Jurriaan remain what they have always intended to be: a Dutch couple from Amsterdam who make wine like they live — wild, free, and deeply connected to the land — always without additives, always with a song, always true — one harvest, one beat, one honest bottle at a time.
"We make wine like we live: wild, free and deeply connected to the land."
— Dido & Jurriaan Morsink, Vinyes Tortuga, Rabós, Alt Empordà