XLC Xarel Lo Culinaries White 2022

XLC Xarel Lo Culinaries White 2022

Partida Creus

Culinaries Exclusive! This fruit of our collaboration with our favorite Catalan-Piedmontese, Antonella and Massimo, is a superb dry white from Catalonia, a unique and rare cuvée, and we are proud to present its first vintage. Classified as Vino de Mesa (table wine) and composed entirely of the indigenous Catalan Xarel·lo grape variety, this Culinaries cuvée is modeled on the estate's XL Xarel·lo, with notable differences. The wine is aged for a longer period and is done in demi-muids (large 500-650 liter barrels), which provides micro-oxygenation that enhances its complexity and fullness. It is therefore an "augmented" version of the XL, and it already tastes admirably, with a promise of great stability. Smoky, mineral, this Vino de Mesa (table wine) is already a classic, offering a pure and typical expression of xarel·lo. You can pair XL Xarel·lo Culinaries with the best of seafood, fish, white meats, roasted, grilled or cooked poultry in sauce...

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Partida Creus is an important estate, both in terms of wine and history – we are talking here about the history of the vine in Catalonia. Massimo Marchiori and Antonella Gerosa, originally from Piedmont – and even coming from the Langhe region, where they know a lot about wines – first pursued a career as architects in Barcelona. But the wine bug tickles them, and soon they abandon the big city and its sophistication for the vineyards of southern Catalonia, in Bonastre in Baix-Penedés. There they find a quantity of abandoned vineyards planted with a dizzying diversity of traditional Catalan grape varieties, which they passionately revive to save these varieties – and their wines – from oblivion. For them, it's not just a matter of heritage rescue, no: it's a matter of taste and nature. Of natural wines, which they will never stop making from now on on these sandy, poor, clay-limestone or clay-gravel soils, poor and poorly irrigated, where the vines suffer to produce their best juice. Massimo and Antonella practice organic, biodynamic viticulture, entirely manual and natural to give new life to these wines. Vinyater, sumoll, garrut, monastrell, ull de perdiu, ull de llebre, sumoll, queixal de llop, cariñena, trepat, subirat parent, maccabeu, parellada, pansé, vinel·lo, bobal, cartoixà vermell or xarel·lo: Partida Creus is a veritable conservatory of native Catalan grape varieties. It also grows moscatel, grenache, merlot and cabernet (among others). Few wineries can boast growing so many different grape varieties. The wines reflect this diversity, with the winemakers striving to best convey the signature of the soil and the grape variety: single-variety wines are common among them, alongside extensive blends, all in the styles dear to Catalonia: still wine, "ancestral" sparkling wine, and even vermouth. The bottles themselves are works of art: bare glass, simply marked with two large stenciled initials that denote the vintage. The wines, fresh, vibrant, lush yet always straightforward and impeccably juicy and fruity, exude life. The arrival of a Partida Creus at the table always elicits cries of satisfaction.