La Pura 2019

La Pura comes from Mas Candí, a winery set up in 2006 in Avinyonet del Penedès to make wine from vines the founders' grandparents had planted. The estate farms over 55 hectares organically next to the Massís del Garraf nature reserve, working native Catalan varieties, and this wine is a single-variety Xarel·lo. Xarel·lo is the backbone of the region's traditional whites, prized for its firm acidity and its ability to age. Here it is raised for eight months in clay amphorae rather than oak. The porous clay allows slow, gentle oxygen exchange that builds texture and roundness while adding no wood flavour, so the fruit and the mineral character of the soils stay in front. The result reads as a white wine rather than a skin-contact style, restrained on the nose and structured on the palate. The colour is pale gold. The nose is discreet, showing citrus, white pear and a stony minerality. The palate has body and grip, dry and fresh, with a saline, lightly herbal finish. Serve at 9 to 11 degrees.