Wine of the week — Spanish Wine Collective

Sumoll is the protagonist in this Blanc de Noirs sparkler from the Massís del Garraf in Catalonia

Clos Lentiscus Blanc de Noirs Brut Nature 2018

Sant Pere de Ribes, Garraf (outside DO Penedès, but member of the international winemaker collective La Renaissance des Appellations [Return to Terroir])

100% Sumoll

ABV: 11%

€17.50 from Cuvee3000

Known in English as mastic or lentisk, Pistachia lentiscus is an evergreen shrub that is native to and grows throughout the Mediterranean. Famously, on the Greek island of Chios, resin from the bush is dried and used as a spice, including to flavour the local distilled liqueur, mastika (think of grappa that tastes of pine and herbs: an acquired taste).

The shrub is also a common feature of the Massís del Garraf, on the edge of which sits my Catalan home town of Sant Pere de Ribes, and here it lends its name to a local winery whose guiding philosophy is rooted in an understanding of and respect for the land: Clos Lentiscus.

Grape growing and winemaking on the family estate that is now worked by Manel Aviñó and his daughter Núria dates back to the fourteenth century. Some five hundred years later, a commercial enterprise that had once exported wine to the Spanish colonies and France entered a period of decline as a result of the phylloxera blight, coupled with a diminishing agricultural workforce as industrialization gained ground in the region. The vineyard parcels remained, but the grapes they produced were now sold on rather than being turned into wine on the premises.

This began to change in 2001, when Manel and his brother Joan picked up the mantle following the death of their father. And in the years since, the estate has progressively become a benchmark for biodynamic viticulture and minimal intervention winemaking. On the land, this means no pesticides or herbicides, sheep allowed to graze and fertilize, and their own bees for cover crop pollination. In the cellar, fermentation is triggered by wild yeasts, and they've gradually moved toward a no sulfites approach, but don't imagine for a minute that there's funk in their wines; on the contrary, these are natural wines with genuine precision.

The vineyards, which in total cover some 22 ha, are planted with a wide range of grape varieties, notably Xarel·lo, Malvasía de Sitges and Sumoll, as well as Moscatel de Alexandría, Cariñena, Parellada, the pink-skinned Xarel·lo Vermell and Tempranillo.

Photograph taken on a visit to Clos Lentiscus in February 2024. Note how the vineyard parcels are integrated within the surrounding woodland landscape, and also the proximity to the Mediterranean Sea. The stone building is the restored family farmhouse, which now houses the cellar and tasting room.

Of the twenty or so wines that are now made by Manel and Núria, the one I've chosen this week is 100% Sumoll from vines that were planted in 1939. And what makes it such a singular wine is not merely that Sumoll as a variety is limited almost exclusively to Catalonia, but also that the wine in question is a sparkler made using the méthode traditionelle. But if I tell you that Manel's tag on Instagram is #bubbleman, then you get a sense of where his heart lies – and it's clear that a lot of heart has gone into this wine. But all this is the backstory, what about the wine.

Well, Sumoll is a red-skinned grape, hence the labelling of the wine as a Blanc de Noirs (the French term for a white wine made from dark-skinned grapes), although as you can see in the photo below, there was enough skin contact during the first press to produce a striking blood orange hue.

Another original touch appears during the secondary fermentation stage, where sugar and yeast need to be added to the base wine. In a further demonstration of the circular philosophy that defines Clos Lentiscus, they make their starter by adding honey from their own bees to grape must from the first press that had been set aside and frozen. For this 2018 vintage, the wine then spent a further 25 months on its lees, before disgorgement in April 2024, with no topping up (dosage) of bottles.

The result is a sparkling wine quite unlike any others I have tried. The nose is complex, with hints of ripe strawberry and brioche and a gentle whiff of stone and herbs that transports me from my table to the Garraf landscape that I know so well from hours spent treading its trails. On the palate, it's more mineral than fruity, with fine, well-integrated bubbles that carry you along through an agreeable bitterness that lingers til the end.

For the past couple of years, the Clos Lentiscus Blanc de Noirs has almost always been the first bottle I uncork when welcoming guests to my table, and I never tire of telling them, with a smile, that it is born of the land a mere 30-minute walk from where they're now sitting. Prepare yourselves, I say, to understand what is meant by terroir.