Partida Creus

Massimo Marchiori and Antonella Gerona are an Italian couple from Piedmont. Both are architects who initially moved to Barcelona for work reasons, but around the year 2000, they moved out to the country, seeking a slower-paced lifestyle. They settled in the Massís de Bonastre (Baix Penedés), which is characterized by its clay and limestone soils. They started farming all kinds of produce and foodstuffs there, but had trouble finding local wines that were natural and authentic, so they started making their own, recovering old vines of local grape varietals.

In most cases, these vineyards were close to abandoned. Whenever they found a new vineyard, they would go to the nearby town, find out who the owner was and approach them to buy, or at least farm, the vineyard, organically. People think they’re crazy for doing this, as the vineyards are very old and low yielding, and in most cases, the grape varieties are obsolete. Some have been disqualified from D.O. for lack of color, as was the case with Sumoll, others were never even accepted. Now Massimo and Antonella are known as the crazy Italians making incredible natural wines with the grapes that all of the locals had written off in favor of more popular “international” varietals.