June 27, 2026 · 6 min read
Empordà Wine Country: A Tasting Route I Love to Share
When guests ask me for one excursion away from the beach, I almost always point them toward the Empordà wine country. It sits just inland from the Costa Brava, spread around Figueres and Peralada, and it feels like a secret even though the vines have been here for centuries. The DO Empordà is not a polished, manicured region. It is windswept and a little wild, and that is exactly why I love it. A morning among the cellers tells you more about this corner of Catalonia than any guidebook ever could, and it gives me the bottles I most want to pour at your dinner.
A region the wind built
The first thing you feel in the Empordà is the tramuntana, the cold, dry wind that pours down from the Pyrenees. It can be fierce, and the vines have learned to grow low and tough against it. That same wind keeps the grapes healthy and concentrated, and you can taste it in the glass: there is a saltiness, a freshness, an honesty to these wines that softer regions never quite reach. The landscape itself is part of the experience, with old stone farmhouses, cork oaks and the silhouette of the mountains behind the rows.
What I love most is how personal the cellers are. Many of the wineries here are still family run, small enough that the person pouring your glass is often the one who pruned the vines. They have time to talk, to open something special, to explain why a hot summer or a long tramuntana changed this year's harvest. That intimacy is rare, and it is the same spirit I try to bring to a private dinner.
What to taste
Start with the reds, because the Empordà is grape country for garnatxa (garnacha) and carinyena (cariñena). These are the old, gnarled vines that handle the wind best, and they give wines that are warm and full of red fruit yet still fresh, never heavy. Then ask for the whites. The fresh, mineral whites here surprise almost everyone: bright, saline and made for the seafood that lands a few kilometres away on the coast. They are some of my favourite bottles to serve before a fish course.
Leave room for the wine the Empordà is most quietly proud of: the Garnatxa de l'Empordà, a sweet wine made from late garnatxa grapes. It is the local treasure, golden and gently nutty, the kind of glass you sip slowly after a meal. I love finishing a dinner with a small pour alongside a soft cheese or a simple dessert, and watching people realise that this region has been keeping a secret all along.
Bringing the Empordà to your table
You do not need to drive an hour to taste this region, although I am always happy to suggest the cellers worth your day. When I cook for you, I bring the Empordà with me. I build the meal around the bottles: a chilled local white with a plate of fresh seafood, a garnatxa red beside slow-cooked lamb or a rice, and that golden Garnatxa de l'Empordà to close. Pairing wine to a menu is one of the parts of my work I enjoy most, because the right glass makes a dish taste like the place it came from.
If the wine country sparks your curiosity, we can make a whole experience of it: a guided visit to a family celler in the morning, then a private dinner that evening built entirely around what we tasted. It turns a holiday into a story you will keep telling. That is what I want for every table I cook at, a meal that feels rooted in this exact stretch of Catalonia and nowhere else.