In the early 1990s, Joan and Josep married chemical engineer María Elena Jiménez and pharmacist Marta Casas respectively. Their love of viticulture and the world of wine were decisive for their wives to decide to join the family winery. The ladies were working in what would be their first harvest, when both decided to study oenology at the University of Tarragona, and later joined the team as the lead winemakers. Their primary challenge since then has been to combine tradition with innovation. María Elena and Marta brought a renaissance to Parés Baltà. Under their direction the range of wines they produce has broadened, they instigated new and innovative techniques such as the green harvest in some of their best vineyards; in the cellar they use some traditional and older school practices, making wine in clay amphorae or demijohns. A more remarkable insight of theirs was to work towards the revival of local grape varietals that have almost been lost in the use of winemaking, specifically Sumoll, Malvasia de Sitges or White Carignan.

Yamile Abad is a Pervuvian-born winemaker and cellar-woman at one of Germany’s oldest wineries in the Mosel, Weingut Staffelter Hof. After leaving her home in Lima Peru, Abad traveled to Mendoza, Argentina to learn winemaking at 21. After studying in Mendoza, Abad did several harvests in both New Zealand and the United States learning about the way grapes are grown in vastly different regions of the world. Her years of study eventually paid off, landing her current gig for Jan Matthias Klein’s Weingut Staffelter Hof, where she makes beautiful natural/ low intervention wines utilizing the traditional Mosel Reisling and even some Pinot Noir.