SK Muscat of Alexandria White 2020

SK Muscat d'Alexandrie Blanc 2020,

Partida Creus

Deliciously fragrant, fresh, and incredibly aromatic, SK Muscat d'Alexandrie is a sumptuous dry white wine with a hint of orange, a color due to well-controlled maceration. The lack of filtration gives it a slightly cloudy appearance. The nose opens frankly with a whiff of marzipan, a sensation confirmed in the mouth with complex notes: apricot, honeysuckle, pear, lychee, white guava, mango, passion fruit, flowering meadow, abundant freshness and crispness, all balanced by a slight herbaceous touch reminiscent of cucumber and fresh white peach, and an earthy side reminiscent of fresh walnut. In short, SK Muscat d'Alexandrie offers all the aromas of a grape variety that generally promises much, and even more. A long, satiny finish. The grapes are fermented using indigenous yeasts in stainless steel vats, and aged for nine months in the same type of container. This wine will go very well with raw, grilled, or sauced fish, spicy dishes such as fish or poultry curries, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Sichuan cuisine, but we'll stop the list of pairings there given the adaptability of this exceptional wine.

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Partida Creus is an important estate, both from a winemaking and historical perspective—we're talking here about the history of the vine in Catalonia. Massimo Marchiori and Antonella Gerosa, originally from Piedmont—and even from the Langhe region, where wine is well-known—first pursued careers 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.