Tiques: Ancestral - Xarel-Lo 2018

Fine Wine from Our Bottle Shop and Taproom:

Joan’s family have lived off viticulture for generations, though in the 80s small-scale
winemaking became unprofitable and they began selling their grapes to local Cava
houses. In 2014, after many years making wine for other estates, most notably
working as technical director at Recaredo for 14 years, Joan started to revive his
family’s cellar. In 2017 he made the jump and quit his job as technical director and
began making wine full time with his family’s grapes.

All of Joan’s plots are found in the Alt Penedès region, he works almost exclusively
with indigenous grapes and is known in particular for his most pure expressions of
the local grape Xarel-lo.

The wine

Xarel-lo from two plots on clay-calcareous soil. Like all of Joan’s whites, the
Ancestral starts with destemming the bunches then the grapes are put into a
stainlees steel vat for a static cap maceration.

For 8 days the grapes are left to macerate with no punchdown or pump over. Instead daily Joan scrapes the top layer of grapes off to avoid oxidisation and volatile. He then racks the wine off solely by gravity and bottles later on. Fermentation finishes in bottle and the wine is left on the lees in bottle for 12 months before disgorging.

Dry but full of delicious flavour.