Alella's white, flowery wines and its lesser known red ones come from a very old vineyard area which has been receding in the last forty years under the pressure of urban development. Today the DO is only a third of its original size when it was created in 1956, although in 1989 it was extended to spread up the slopes of the coastal mountains.

In the 1980s a series of new grapes were introduced here and wines were modernised, revealing new potential. Wineries are urban farmsteads built up stepped slopes which drop away to the sea .

The range of altitudes governs which grape varieties are grown and what kind of wine is made in which part of the vineyard.