Vins Pepe Raventós Xarel·lo de la Vinya del Noguer Alt 2023
£27.95
The wine
A saline, fresh still white. Grapefruit, pear and green apple, with the cut the variety gives.
Xarel·lo is one of the three traditional Cava grapes and the one with the structure to make a serious still white, which almost nobody attempts. From the Noguer Alt vineyard. The Raventós family have grown vines on the same estate since 1497. In 2012 they left the Cava DO altogether, judging it too loose to mean anything, and now bottle under Conca del Riu Anoia, a designation of their own making that requires estate fruit, biodynamic farming and longer ageing.
The producer
Vins Pepe Raventós
View all Vins Pepe Raventós winesVins Pepe Raventós is the personal, artisanal project of Pepe Raventós, of the pioneering Raventós i Blanc family in Catalonia's Penedès. Farmed biodynamically, it explores the region's heritage through a small range of characterful still and sparkling wines.
The old family vineyards sit on limestone rich in marine fossils, worked with biodynamic care to express each parcel with clarity. The focus is firmly on native Catalan varieties.
Highlights include a textured single-vineyard still Xarel·lo, a rare red from the almost-lost Bastard Negre grape, an aromatic Malvasia de Sitges, and the profound, long-aged Mas del Serral sparkling.
Individual, thoughtful and deeply rooted in place, these are wines for the curious. Discover the artisan side of the Penedès.
