2023 PARTIDA CREUS Clarete CL
Out of stock
Grape Varietal: Garnatxa Negra & Garnatxa Blanca (Grenache)
Country: Spain
Region: Baix Penedès, Catalonia
The Wine: Partida Creus is the project of Massimo Marchiori and Antonella Gerona, the Piedmontese couple who left architecture and Barcelona city life around 2000 to settle in Bonastre, farming abandoned old-vine plots of indigenous varieties their neighbors had written off, with their donkey Orazio and mule Vicenza, on calcareous clay soils a few kilometers from the Mediterranean.
CL stands for Clarete — an ancient Iberian tradition of co-fermenting red and white grapes together to produce something lighter than a red and more textured than a rosé. Here the grapes are Garnatxa Negra and Garnatxa Blanca, pressed together without complete destemming, then fermented spontaneously with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel, bottled unfiltered, unfined, and without any added sulfur — living wine, pale ruby, barely classifiable.
The 2023 CL Clarete sits in its own category: too dark for rosé, too pale for red, exactly right for everything. It opens with aromas of wild strawberry, sour cherry, and orange peel, with a lick of Mediterranean herbs and chalk. On the palate it is juicy and weightless, with electric acidity, a silky thread of tannin, and a dry, saline finish that disappears fast and makes you pour another.
Pairing: Grilled sardines with lemon, a plate of jamón and pickled peppers, crispy fried artichokes with aioli, or a long evening on a sun-warmed terrace with olives, good bread, and this served slightly chilled straight from the fridge.
