Macabeo

From the Río Magro valley

On the south-facing slopes above the Río Magro valley near Requena grow the roughly 25-year-old Macabeo bush vines that Viña de Eufemia uses for El Pino Mariano. The grapes are hand-picked at dawn, and only the mosto flor, the first free-run juice, is used, a yield of about 40 per cent. The wine then spends twelve months on the lees and gets no dosage.

Why Macabeo so often sparkles

Macabeo has little perfume of its own. In sparkling wine that helps, because during its time on the lees the base wine picks up notes of brioche and toasted nuts. That is why the grape, together with Xarel·lo and Parellada, is part of classic Cava. In Rioja it is called Viura, in Roussillon Maccabeu.

In Requena it often gets a partner. In Fuente Melada it is blended with Xarel·lo and spends at least 25 months on the lees. For the Reserva Brut 2021, Eufemia picks the Chardonnay at the end of August and the Macabeo only in early September. In the Penedès, Can Ràfols dels Caus puts 30 per cent Macabeo into its Clímax, with Xarel·lo and Chenin Blanc. If you want to learn Macabeo as a sparkling wine, start with the pure El Pino Mariano all the same, and drink the blends afterwards.

Still: white, orange and in a clarete

In the Balsa Blanco, Macabeo sits alongside Xarel·lo and Tardana from the Balsa plot near Casas de Eufemia; the wine spends four months on the fine lees, and 3,200 bottles are made. Can Ràfols dels Caus in the Penedès blends it with Xarel·lo and Muscat for the Terraprima Blanc, with part of the Xarel·lo aged in chestnut wood.

Verónica Romero turns Macabeo from bush vines more than 40 years old near Los Duques, at around 700 metres, into an orange wine. Her El Carbonero ferments spontaneously on its skins and is bottled unfined, unfiltered and without added sulphites. She made it as a tribute to her father.

Clara is a clarete, a pale red made from red and white grapes, here 60 per cent Bobal and 40 per cent Macabeo. The Macabeo grows on limestone and marl, the Bobal on sand, and after direct pressing the wine rests five months on its fine lees in stainless steel.