{"product_id":"blanc-sense-papers-2024-bodega-clandestina","title":"Blanc Sense Papers 2024 - Bodega Clandestina","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn elegant nose with citrus, sea breeze, and custard, layered with white florals and thyme. The palate shows a delicate yet complex structure with fine, featherweight tannins adding a subtle bitterness to this bright, saline, Xarello, driven by limestone minerality.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGood with:\u003c\/strong\u003e grilled sea bass, or goat's cheese with honey and thyme.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eXarello from two sites, planted 1962 and 1968. The harvest was over three passes, the first was pressed directly, the second pass saw short, 24 hour skin maceration, and the final pass, about 10% of the wine, got two weeks of skin contact. Each pass was vinified separately, aged in glass demijohn (the final portion was aged in cask), and blended before bottling.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eFerran Lacruz works 8 hectares of vines around his hometown of Sant Martí Sarroca in the Alt Penedès. A graduate of the Escola Agrària de Viticultura i Enologia Mercè Rossell i Domènech, Ferran was moved to make wine in his hometown after years working in tourism, where he encountered first-hand, among his clients, the reputational damage that decades of heavy, intensive viticulture had inflicted on the region. Growing up in the Penedès with a winemaking uncle, Ferran knows the hills of the Alt Penedès like the back of his hand, so when it came to acquiring vines, he already knew where to look. He was exacting in his selection, picking sites not on the hillsides where one might expect, but in the valleys, where the diurnal range is greatest, allowing slower ripening and later harvests. His Xarel·lo comes from old vine stock planted in the '60s and '70s, trained as bush vines, growing to a remarkable size in the famous cervell de gat soils of the region. He has also planted Carignan Blanc, a variety that ripens late and keeps its acidity well. In the cellar, all of the wines see a certain amount of skin contact, extracting the phenolics inherent to Xarel·lo and lending his wines a delicate complexity that shows the class of the variety. Ferran's use of glass for the élevage of the lighter wines brings a roundness and balance, while old wood and amphorae are used in the ageing of the more extracted wines. The wines themselves are remarkably lucid, detailed with the typicity of their provenance and the fiery personality of their maker.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe place\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe majority of the Xarello here comes from the Fassina vineyard, a fascinating planting that harks back to the post phylloxera era, when the growers here were experimenting with suitable rootstocks in their vineyards. Three portions of the vineyard show three distinctive leaf shapes and growth patterns, despite it being from the same plant material.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrapes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Xarello\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Sant Martí Sarroca, Alt Penedès, Catalunya, Spain\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABV:\u003c\/strong\u003e 12%\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bodega Clandestina","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988701729106,"sku":"1700309","price":30.5,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/bw-blanc-sense-papers-2024.jpg?v=1793699099","url":"https:\/\/www.brianswines.ie\/products\/blanc-sense-papers-2024-bodega-clandestina","provider":"Brian's Wines","version":"1.0","type":"link"}