Gaudi, Escoda and Natural Art

“…I think people want things that are really passionate, and the best version they could be, and often, the best version they could be is not for everybody…

The best art divides the audience, where if you put out a record, and half the people who hear it absolutely love it, and half the people who hear it absolutely hate it, you’ve done well, because it’s pushing that boundary. If everyone thinks, oh, that’s pretty good…why bother making it? It’s almost…it doesn’t mean as much…”

-Rick Rubin, Tim Ferris Podcast, Episode 76

I stood there, mouth agape, just staring at it…

…I had been to see towering cathedrals before. Notre Dame (Paris)- check. Just recently, the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo in Perugia. Religion aside, they are all incredible masterpieces of art and architecture, history and culture. But this one was different. It was…It was scary. I was nervous around it.

We came across the Sagrada Familia after a long day of walking thru Barcelona on a Gaudi / Gaudi-inspired trail. While a novice, I have a love for art and architecture, and I was very lucky to have my colleague Valeria Urbani and her best friend (and local) Jean guide me through a proper tour. Our first stop was Gaudi’s Casa Batlló. This was my entrance into Gaudi’s world. And like Rubin’s quote above, I was confused as I took it in, and then as I started to receive the art and learn more about Gaudi, I began to love the work.

For me, Gaudi’s work is uncomfortable- in a good way.

It’s intricate. The detail is incredible. The craftsmanship is deft and has clearly stood the test of time. Vale and Jean shared that Gaudi’s inspiration came from nature- from the flow and natural growth in how nature actually work. Nothing was straight and yet there was an organization to it all. There was a sense of divine coordination in it, in the way a beautiful flower garden works in harmony, where each flower, each plant, each leaf, separately, could not work alone. My mind drew a parallel to the work of HR Giger, but in an almost insect-like natural way. Gaudi was so ahead of his time, I thought.

But then, standing there, receiving the Sagrada Familia, I was struck by one thought: someone paid for this art, and they paid for it back in the 1890s!

That someone would be Eusebi Guell.  He loved the work. He had the foresight to embrace it. Guell saw the genius and the fanaticism, and Guell saw past the eccentricities, and that Gaudi was producing more than just great architecture. He was heralding the church and he was celebrating nature in a completely open form. Keep in mind that it was 1878 when the two men met. For context, top hats were en vogue in men’s fashion. The great painters of the day included Monet, Degas and Van Gogh. Pablo Picasso has just been born! The celebrated musicians of the day, the rock stars, were Strauss, Brahms, and Mahler. Yes, Impressionism was there, but work like Gaudi’s…He was beyond beyond.

No doubt, it took enormous courage for Gaudi to express himself in this way back then. I think it took equal (if not more) courage for Guell to pay for Gaudi’s work and to stand by and celebrate him. Only a few other great early patrons like Guell come to mind: Gertrude Stein (Picasso), Clive Davis (Whitney Houston), etc..

These visits caused me to reflect on the day before when we visited with Joan Escoda.

The similarities and parallels are so many. Both men are driven by an openness to craft their art based on what nature gives. As Gaudi started out classically, Joan did as well. (Joan’s mind was open- ‘set free’, perhaps- in 2001 at a stage in the Loire with Marc Angeli. He grew up with the founders of natural wine in France and took those principles home. ) Both men are using local tools and local ingredients. Gaudi worked heavily in local tile and ceramics, Escoda working in native varieties, making the wines in traditional underground cement, stainless steel tanks, amphora, and old barrels. And after that, like Gaudi, Joan lets nature flow. He surfs his wines, entering each vintage with no plan, seeing what happens, receiving nature as She comes to him, making choices by gut feel and understanding that there could be consequences, and that making great wine requires that risk. In his recent book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin writes about how true artists need to receive nature, and receive the art, and not let their own humanity and fear stunt it. Gaudi did this. Joan does this. He is full send. He is Brutal. 

Where does Indie fit into all of this? We don’t. We are Guell. Our job is to just let Joan be Joan. I don’t ask him for allocations. I don’t ask him for a growth plan. I don’t even ask him for formal tech sheets. I go to see him and the information just flows. At cellar with him, I just let Joan by Joan, jotting down notes as Joan delivers philosophy and ideas and information. We do everything we can not to impose on his creativity.

There is no plan with artists like these. Maybe Joan sends us this wine, or that wine. Honestly, if Joan has a release schedule I don’t know it, and I don’t really care if he does. We email. And he tells me what he likes and what he has for us. I say thank you and we place our order. That is our natural flow. 

And we don’t bug him. Indie Wineries has never passed on a client credit memo request to Escoda, and we never will. Joan doesn’t make ‘correct’ wine for the business of wine. He makes art. He takes chances and he is the rare exception, with a combination of both technique and openness, that can elevate his wine to something magical- more than just wine in the glass. And sometimes he misses and that’s fine. Every great artist sketches and dabbles and explores, and it’s important that we allow space for that.

Rick Rubin would absolutely call Joan an artist…

…as Joan makes wines ‘you didn’t think could be made; and wines you can’t live without."‘

At our recent visit, somewhere a few bottles in, we got to talking about Sumol Blanco. Last year, Joan made his Brutal bottling from Sumol Blanco. Indie got so little I didn’t get to taste it. Hearing this, Joan rushed away to go find one to open for me. It was transcendent- not a white wine. More a painting.

“A lot of people now make Brutal, like every vintage..many from the same wine….what do you think?” I asked him.

“I don’t care”, he said. “Let them do what they want. They make Brutal. They don’t make Brutal. I don’t care. Brutal is brutal. They can have it…” I smiled inside. He’s surfing the business of wine as well. Natural business?

I listened to him talk more about wine and business and life and it suddenly dawned on me as to why he was right in this surrender. I stopped him and said, 

“Nothing in nature grows in a straight line does it…A river. The branch of a tree. It all pushes forward evolving - never straight.”  Joan smiled. We understood each other. I continued…“Yeah, now that I think of it the only thing that is asked to grow in straight lines is the growth of a business by its banks and investors, but that’s not even the natural progression of business…or life.” 

“Exactly Christian. This is brutal!”

Joan smiled.