Winemaker Notes
Xarel·Lo is a native variety that is planted on 50% of the entire estate. It is the first to bud, has the longest cycle of all our varieties, and at the harvest has the best sugar-acidity-intensity balance. It is our seal of identity, the variety that allows the long ageing of our sparkling wines, due to its good agricultural performance and its aromatic and taste potential. Parellada is a moderately vigorous and rustic but at the same time sensitive to rain during the ripening period. The white harvest always ends with this variety. Native variety well-adapted to the high parts of the Penedès. The Parellada on our estate gives a touch of delicacy to our sparkling wines.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Textures de Pedra comes from a dry year that was warmer than 2013 but a little cooler than 2015, and the wine reflects that. It comes from their higher-altitude vineyard (some 250 meters in altitude) with alluvial soils covered by boulders á la Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which give very low yields. With time, the clay has been washed down to the lower-altitude places, and this part has remained stony and poor, which is the character the soil transmits to the wine. This is sold one year later than the De la Finca, after some four years in bottle with the lees. This is a serious, austere and mineral sparkling wine with a very strong mineral sensation and a dry, salty finish. They started fermenting the base wine in concrete in 2017, and this is still produced in stainless steel. 11,000 bottles produced.
-
Wine & Spirits
As charming in its honeyed texture and its passion fruit and mango flavor as the 2013 (also recommended), this wine has a pithy lemony acidity that carries it toward notes of hazelnut and almond skin, with a lift of springtime herbs. Splash it in a decanter to allow the fruit to show, then serve with a cheese plate.
Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.
A superior source of white grapes for the production of Spain’s prized sparkling wine, Cava, the Penedes region is part of Catalunya and sits just south of Barcelona. Medio Penedès is the most productive source of the Cava grapes, Macabeo, Xarel-lo, and Parellada. Penedes also grows Garnacha and Tempranillo (here called Ull de Llebre in Catalan), for high quality reds and rosès.