Why This Bottle, Really?
Not What You Think of When You Think of Spanish Wine
2016 SM, Partida Creus, Penedés, Catalonia (Spain), about $30 (US importer Zev Rovine).
Partida Creus SM is a peculiar bottle of wine, a light, pale red from an indigenous grape, at 10 percent alcohol. It’s the exact opposite of what I and most people think of when they think of a Spanish red wine, which would be something that tastes of lots of oak, with dark, earthy notes, and that really sticks to your gums. SM is a blush red with lots of juice and completely dry, a real refreshment.
Massimo Marchiori and Antonella Gerona are an Italian couple who live in the Baix Penedés region of Catalonia, where the climate is Mediterranean; the soil they work with is clay-lime. They are passionate about human health and the health of the planet. Approximately 18 years ago, they started to grow their own food and wine organically. Only after producing more wine than they could consume themselves or give away did they consider opening a winery. With their Partida Creus, they specialize in finding abandoned vineyards and cultivating them organically. Currently, they have two and a half hectares of their own vines, rent another one and a half hectares, and they buy grapes from several friends.
Lucky for us, they are an industrious pair. They now make 30 or more different wines out of 15 different varieties, mostly of indigenous origin, which in its own right is pretty daunting to consider. The bottle that is special to us, which I have drunk many times, including recently with friends at home, is made from a black grape called Sumoll, which gives the abbreviated name SM. Before phylloxera, it may have been the most planted variety in the region. Interestingly, the couple, though they are foreigners in Spain, have become local references as other winemakers have started to adopt native grapes rather than raise internationally known varieties. Under Spain’s denominacións de origen, Sumoll would never get a stamp of approval, mainly for its lack of color.
Partida Creus makes “natural wines.” This one has a slight spritz, which concerned one guest when I opened it. But when the food got to the table, the high-acid light red was the perfect accompaniment to a slightly salty dinner of grilled chicken, bitter greens with anchovy vinaigrette, and roast potatoes. This wine is as light as you would imagine strawberry juice to be. It refracts the light; there is something almost neon about the color. The freshness, with little to no tannins, makes a glass hard to put down.
I tend to drink things young and fresh anyway, and I find this wine so agreeable that it would be a challenge to keep a bottle in the house, but I imagine the wine would age well. It’s fermented and aged in stainless steel, which with this unfiltered, very natural wine, has left spritz.
The winemakers want to make sure that after drinking their wine you will walk away feeling better. Reading about them online (I’ve never met them), what I find perhaps most compelling is that they hardly talk about the wine at all, not the soil or outdoor or indoor methods, just about health and responsibility and caring about people. ●
From issue 102