Vine Path Blog 8/20: Partida Creus!!!
Vine Path Blog 8/20 Partida Creus!!!
If you’ve been in our little club for a while then you’ve probably seen this winery before. Once a year we get our humble allocation of this venerated natural winery in Catalonia and we end up reserving it as a club exclusive. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to offer Partida Creus to y’all this month. This might be the best line-up of Partida Creus we’ve ever received!
Massimo Marchiori and Antonella Gerona
Partida Creus was established in 2000 by Massimo Marchiori and Antonella Gerona, a couple of Italian architects from Piedmont that wanted to set roots down in Catalonia, Spain. They started by purchasing various abandoned, wild, and old vineyards containing a myriad of heritage varietals and set forth to rehabilitate them. Catalonia is an old winegrowing region and it’s notably arid and warm, which are great conditions for vines. Catalonia is also very expansive and rural (apart from Barcelona) and is ridden with abandoned vineyards. As you drive down the motorway between Barcelona and the Baix Penedes (Partida Creus’ home) you’ll see obviously untended vines just about everywhere you look. Many of these vineyards were once great and just as many are planted to varietals that we don’t get to taste a lot of these days. This is what makes this winery so exciting, old vine wines made from unique, heritage varietals that you can’t find from anyone else.
Partida Creus’ output is staggering. In a single year they will make dozens of wines from their diversity of grapes, none in large quantities, and all with no winemaking inputs. They’re committed to farming their land organically and strive to make wines that have a pure expression of the grape. For this reason they refuse to even add SO2 to the bottles. To most winemakers, this move is too risky, but for Partida Creus it’s how it needs to be. The wines are always brisk and light but complex and intensely flavorful.
Partida Creus SP Blanco 2019
“SP” stands for Subirat Parent, an ancient and nearly extinct clone of Malvasia native to Catalonia. As far as I am aware, this is the only bottling on earth of this interesting grape. It’s notably light on the palate, clocking in at only 10% ABV this year, but has a huge nose that’s richly floral and earthy. The palate expresses a lot of citrus and tropical fruit surrounding a mass of minerality that makes SP lip smackingly delicious.
Partida Creus XL Blanco 2019
“XL” is short for Xarel-lo, Catalonia’s prized white grape. This varietal is widely planted around Catalonia and is the king grape for the production of Cava, Spain’s method champenoise sparkling wine. I am personally very fond of Xarel-lo and feel like there should be more vinified into still wines. I also really wish more people could be exposed to it since it has such great potential as a white wine. I’m thrilled to have gotten this one for you. High toned, high acid, super mineral and rocky, citric, floral, salty, and super energized, this wine is a killer and a total novelty.
Partida Creus VN Tinto 2019
“VN” stands for Vinel-lo and is a core wine that Partida Creus makes each year. It’s always a field blend of Garnatxa, Garrut, Queixal de Llop, Samso, Sumoll Tinto, Trepat, and Ull de Perdiu (phew!) and it’s always delicious. This wine always has a bit more mass than the other wines they make but it constantly keeps that super fresh structure and drinkability that all their wines have. I always find that this wine has an intense smokey character to it that I don’t often find in wines from this area. I also love the light, dusty tannins that hold the wine together.
