Recaredo 'SERRAL DEL VELL' Brut Nature 2018

Robert Parker Wine Advocate
[vintage 2017]

All their wines are Brut Nature, and so is the 2017 Serral del Vell, a blend of 87% Xarel.lo and 13% Macabeo. For them, it was an earlier harvest but within the normal parameters. This is a single-vineyard wine from soils with a very high content of calcium carbonate (33% active limestone), which gives the wine a very lively palate with a clear salty twist. The first vintage of this wine was 2006 and was born with less Xarel.lo, but the percentage has grown over the years because it started with a more classical blend with close to 50% Macabeo. They look for the expression of the soil here, narrower and more direct, with more tension and with tons of elegance from the aging with the lees, very integrated and balanced, keeping the acidity. It developed an acute note of licorice with time in the glass. It was disgorged after 56 months sur lie, because demand outgrows supply. They have 47,000 bottles of this vintage, which should last them for two years, so the 2018 will have a longer aging in bottle when it's released.

Recaredo is one of the leading producers of sparkling wines, now under the collective brand Corpinnat (in the past, in the Cava DO), and since the 2017 vintage, it keeps moving in the direction to use only organic must to provoke the second fermentation in bottle, something they started working on in 2013. Of course, all their vineyards, 90 hectares, and wines (280,000 bottles) are certified organic and biodynamic, but they don't print the Demeter certification on the label because it has a very high cost.

Incredibly enough, they didn't export any wine in 2007, and today the export market only represents 20% of their volume. They are the best producer of sparkling wine from Spain.