A category-defying wine made with local varietal Xarel-lo Vermell, an obscure strain of the white grape which ripens with blush pink skins. After two weeks macerating in chestnut barrels, this flush of colour bleeds into the juice, leaving things a beautiful peachy sunset pink, somewhere in the middle of the orange wine/rosé venn diagram.
The barrels are very traditional in Penedès winemaking, but have largely been faded out in commercial production. After seven months resting in these vessels the wine is texturally rounded, with some fantastic clarity and poise to its well-defined structure. Blood orange, pink grapefruit and little red berries hang in the balance with floaty floral blossom and cracked peppercorn spice. A fascinating, perfectly-executed wine from a small single parcel of less than a hectare, with only 2000 bottles produced.
Part of a long history in the region, Ignasi Sigui is the 22nd generation of his family to farm the land here, an estate founded in the Alt Penedès as far back as the 1400s. Combining the duty to upholding tradition with a restless, forward-thinking energy, Ignasi established Vinyes Singulars in 2009 as a new way of expressing the 20 hectares of vines that sit amongst a wider expanse of cereal crops, olive trees, vegetable gardens and forest. The entire surface has been certified organic since 2010.
South of Barcelona, the region is more widely known for commercial Cava production, although pockets of growers like Ignasi exist in the fringes, tending old vineyard parcels, preserving local varietals that have fallen out of favour and using traditional methods to make the wine.
The 20 hectares produces roughly 50,000 bottles of wine annually, but, with the vines being dotted over myriad small parcels, and Ignasi's desire to express each of these parcels individually, he makes upwards of 30 different cuvées each year, some in tiny quantities. The idea being that each wine represents an individual part of this fertile, sun-drenched idyll. We have cherry-picked just a small selection of them to start.
Being in the higher part of the region, the vines sit between 500-600 meters altitude and are planted over the typical argilo-calcaire mix of limestone and clay. It's an enviable spot, enjoying hot days of scorching Mediterranean sun and cooler nights, the proximity to the coast bringing in moderating winds from over the Balearic sea. The resulting wines are lithe and energetic, full of fresh citrus, oceanic salts and minerals. Extending on the organic work in the vines, they all ferment with native yeasts, are unfiltered and have no additions.
