Recaredo, ‘Terrers’, Corpinnat, Brut Nature

I have said it before, and I become more convinced of it every year: Corpinnat is the most exciting genuinely quality-driven designation for traditional-method sparkling wine in the world today. Its rules seem almost deliberately designed to eliminate shortcuts: organic farming, hand harvesting, native grapes, estate vinification, long lees aging and rigorous independent auditing, all within a tightly defined territory in the heart of Penedès. And if you want to understand just how far that philosophy can be taken, Recaredo is the place to start. Founded in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia in 1924 by Josep Mata Capellades a professional riddler and disgorger who literally began excavating his cellar beneath the family home with pick and shovel; Recaredo has spent a century pursuing an increasingly uncompromising vision of sparkling wine. The family pioneered Brut Nature, championed long aging and made Xarel·lo the intellectual center of its wines long before these ideas became fashionable. Recaredo was also one of the founders of Corpinnat, and today it remains the producer against which I instinctively measure the category. Terrers is technically the family's introductory wine. There is nothing introductory about the way it is made.

The 2020 Terrers is 91% Xarel·lo, with 5% Macabeu, 3% Parellada and just 1% Monastrell, assembled from a mosaic of Recaredo's own vineyards. That dominance of Xarel·lo is crucial. Where Chardonnay often supplies Champagne with elegance and acidity, Xarel·lo brings something altogether more Mediterranean: structure, herbal complexity, citrus oils, earth, salt and an almost phenolic firmness that makes it unusually well suited to prolonged aging on the lees. Recaredo farms its vineyards organically and biodynamically, without irrigation, and everything is harvested by hand. In 2020 the estate averaged a remarkable 24 hectoliters per hectareless than one-third of Corpinnat's permitted maximum. This is sparkling wine approached with the viticultural seriousness normally reserved for great still wine: quality is established in the vineyard first, and the bubbles come later.

The 2020 growing season gave the family plenty to contend with. More than 800 millimeters of rain fell during the wine-growing year, dramatically above the region's historical average of roughly 520, creating tremendous mildew pressure through spring and early summer. For an organically and biodynamically farmed estate, that meant an exceptionally demanding year in the vineyards. Yet those winter and spring rains also replenished the soils before summer heat arrived, and Recaredo reports that the vines maintained sufficient vegetative development to withstand the subsequent heat waves. There is something particularly compelling about a vintage like this at an estate such as Recaredo: the finished wine isn't the product of an easy Mediterranean growing season, but of obsessive farming and selection under difficult conditions. Those tiny yields tell part of the story.

Then comes the cellar work, and this is where Recaredo separates itself even further. The first fermentation takes place in stainless steel and used oak, but the barrels are not there to perfume the wine. Beginning with the 2020 vintage, even the second fermentation is initiated using yeasts originating in Recaredo's own vineyards. Terrers then spent a minimum of 52 months resting on its lees astonishingly, this makes it the shortest-aged sparkling wine in Recaredo's range. Even more unusually, the bottles age under natural cork rather than crown cap, are riddled by hand in traditional pupitres, and are individually disgorged by hand at the natural temperature of the cellar without freezing the neck. No dosage is added afterward: this is true Brut Nature. There is an almost monastic accumulation of small, difficult, expensive choices here, none particularly flashy on its own. Taken together, they explain why Recaredo tastes so different from industrial sparkling wine.

Serve the 2020 Terrers around 50°F in a large tulip-shaped sparkling-wine stem something broad enough to let the wine open, rather than a narrow flute. The color is luminous straw-gold, animated by an exceptionally fine, persistent stream of bubbles. The nose moves beyond simple citrus and apple into lemon peel, quince, fennel, dried Mediterranean herbs and almond, followed by the toasted bread, pastry and subtle roasted notes that emerge from more than four years on the lees. The palate is simultaneously creamy and bone-dry, with remarkably integrated carbonation, substantial Xarel·lo structure and a bright mineral freshness carrying everything through a long, saline finish. Put a platter of grilled scallops on the half-shell beside it, with a bowl of warm drawn butter, and very little else is required. The sweet, browned exterior of the scallops plays beautifully against the wine's toasted lees character, while Xarel·lo has enough substance for their dense texture; the butter exaggerates the wine's creaminess for an instant before the Brut Nature dryness, bubbles and acidity sweep the palate clean. A squeeze of lemon over the scallops ties directly into the wine's citrus character, while the char from the grill pulls forward its smoky, savory side. It is luxurious food and profoundly serious sparkling wine, but the pairing itself could hardly be simpler.