Today we are sharing a delicious, genuinely hand-crafted, astonishingly affordable sparkling rosé. When it comes to sparkling wine, I spend most of my time researching, writing about, and drinking one thing: Champagne. I’m a certified Champagne fanatic but that doesn’t mean I don’t sit up and take notice when an outstanding, but considerably less costly sparkling wine comes across my desk.
The Suriol family, whose small homestead is tucked up in the hills north of Barcelona, bottles sparkling wine much in the same way as my favorite “grower” Champagne producers. They start with certified organic and hand-harvested estate fruit from old-vine parcels the family has owned and worked for more than 600 (!) years. Fruit is separated, then fermented by individual parcel before years of patient labor, hand-riddling and extended bottle aging bring the finished product to life. Unlike many producers in their region, the Suriol family adds absolutely no sugar (dosage) to their wine. The end result, for $24, is a fascinating introduction to one of Spain’s “legacy” sparkling wine families. It’s a wonderfully pure, mineral, and healthful sparkling wine—and a pretty impressive “house sparkling wine” to keep for barbecues and family events, if you ask me!
Whereas as Champagne remains one of the more cold and dreary sparkling wine-dedicated wine regions I’ve ever visited, Alt Penedés is arguably the most picturesque. Just one hour into the mountains north of Barcelona—one of my favorite culinary and cultural destinations in Europe—warm breezes roll off the nearby Mediterranean and provide balance to the region’s sub-alpine landscape. From almost any vantage point in Alt Penedés, you can see the jagged white fangs of Montserrat cutting into the sky above. Despite the made-for-Instagram scenery and thriving wine trade, Alt Penedés has somehow managed to avoid becoming a “Disneyland for adults” like so many other historic wine regions. Here, every cellar and small taverna still feels untouched, authentic, and timeless.
It is in this setting that the Suriol family has lived, farmed, and made wine since the 1400s. Today, brothers Eudal and Assiz Suriol oversee all aspects of farming and winemaking on their hillside property. Eudal works in the vineyards while Assiz works primarily in the cellar. The 25-hectare farm is located in the village of Font-Rubi, with the vines sited at an elevation of 1,000 to 1,200 feet in dense, clay-calcareous soils. The Suriol family compound feels like a small village—a cluster of residences and cellars at the top of a hill, with a dense patchwork of small individual vineyards adorning the hillside below. There is also a large forest protecting the hillside from wind and moderating the area’s more severe temperature changes. The property has been farmed organically and without herbicides or pesticides since its creation, and became officially certified 18 years ago. Unlike the region’s larger and more recognized wine producers, who often work with industrially farmed and/or purchased fruit, the Suriol family owns and farms all their own vineyards. The family bottles a small amount of delicious red wines which do deserve your attention, but the property is primarily planted to white grape varieties; the family’s undeniable focus and livelihood is their outstanding sparkling wines.
Today, we are offering the 2013 vintage of Assiz and Eudal’s perennially outstanding “Brut Nature Rosat” cuvée. Fruit for this wine comes from two vineyards, equally weighted to “Mataró” for Monastrell, and “Els Lladoners” for Garnacha. This wine’s organically certified fruit and native yeast fermentation imbue it with perfect clarity and pure, chalky minerality. It is not a one-note wine, however. Ample red fruit and toasted yeast notes have developed over a combined 4+ years in bottle, and today it’s a robust and layered wine which finishes dry as a bone, due to the complete absence of added sugar. I encourage you to serve at 50-55 degrees in all-purpose white white stems or flared, tulip-style flutes. At such a pleasant price, you don’t need to save it for a special occasion. This is a effortless, over-delivering wine for weeknight sushi, penne pesto, or—as the Suriol family might suggest—a heaping plate of Lomo de Ibérico sausage with sliced baguette. The point is: don’t overthink this wine, just enjoy it!
