Philosophy of a Chardonnay from Penedès

A pendulum. Now this way, strongly, and then that way, strongly. Every pendulum leaves us with something good, logically, on the side where it's been, which we'll keep when the pendulum swings back. Today's wine is a Chardonnay from the Penedès. Who wants Catalan Chardonnays now, when the pendulum—quite logically—is taking us toward native varieties? If we're talking about whites and the Penedès, Xarel lo reigns supreme, with all due respect. It's very good that it should be so, and it's very good that we're recovering abandoned varieties (We have spoken here as of the dark-skinned one). But what should we do with the Chardonnay planted in the 1990s, like with the Cabernet? Do we have to pull them up? But all of them? They're also part of our winemaking history.

Today we're introducing you to a Chardonnay from a small, very small winery, where only Lluís Vich and his father, who bears the same name, work. He started in 2012 with his own brand, but since 2005 he's been doing things. First, he came to the village, in bulk, for the festivals. And with the cents he bought now a tank, now some butts... They're in inland Penedès; they have estates in Anoia and estates in Penedès. The oldest Parellada vines are 70 years old, spread across three beautiful vignettes. His father planted this Chardonnay. In the 1980s, everyone wanted Chardonnay. The vines were supplied to them by Codorniu, who bought them. And in the end, due to the pendulum swing, they told them they didn't want any more.

The vineyard is called Rasa Fonda, like the wine. It's one hectare and that's it. It's what's left of all that Chardonnay the father pulled out.

Our winemaker harvests the grapes in boxes, manually. "I take them to the winery, press them directly, ferment with yeast from the same vineyard, harvest a few hundred kilos, and pull out a vine," he says. This means he takes maybe 150 kilos of grapes, crushes them with skins, removes the stems... and sets the yeast in motion. After a week and a half, they're in full fermentation, and then he harvests the rest of the vineyard and adds it. "I do the racking once fermentation starts, and I use used 500-liter French oak casks. And that's fine, until I leave the wine there. And I age it with the mothers for three or four months, and then I don't move it, I leave them alone, I don't stir them anymore, and I put it in the cask, take it out, and bottle it."

This wine, for Chardonnay fans like me, has been changing with climate change. It used to be exaggeratedly acidic, and now it's not as acidic. The alcohol content has increased, but it's not noticeably more alcoholic. In a wine like this, it's about finding acidity and maturation, so that the wood doesn't kill it (that's why the cask is used and 500 liters). This wine has the oxygenation and creaminess of the Chardonnay. Once bottled, the wood appears, but as it spends time in the bottle, it rounds off. It has these touches of toffee (as I like them) of Chardonnay.

"A Chardonnay is hard to sell these days, and I understand. Would you order a Chardonnay from Penedès in a restaurant? I understand that there must be, and there are now, a hundred Xarelos and twenty Chardonnays." But this Chardonnay is also our memory. Our man's father planted it, and that father planting these grapes, at one time, is also part of our wine history. Don't miss it, it will take you to heaven, if you are a lover of this variety, so fresh and unctuous, the kind that fills your mouth.

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