Carriel dels Vilars Blanc Petillant 2021

Garnatxa Blanc, Macabeu, Xarel·lo, Garnatxa, Parellada, Chardonnay, Carinyena

Organic

Catalunya, Spain

Carles Alonso crafts extremely personal, rugged natural wine in the shadows of the Pyrenees with grapes from his wild jungle-like vineyards. He left his job as director of investments at Caixa Catalunya in 1979 to build his stone house in the tiny hamlet of Els Vilars, grow his own food, and craft natural wine from 2.5ha of slate slopes 250m above sea level. His vines grow among native grasses, flowers, and bugs, competing for water and struggling for nutrients in Girona’s arid Alt Empordà climate, untended but for a single aggressive winter pruning and a touch of 'caldo bordelés' after flowering. The savage fruit from these vineyards makes for haunting wine full of Mediterranean character, kept fresh by the tramontana that blows from the mountains to the north.